11th May.
I have just been to see my berth on board the Yuen-tse-Fee, a private steamer. She is to stop at Chihfu. I have a cabin to myself, a piece of good luck which I have enjoyed ever since Galle. In about a week hence I expect to be at Peking. We sail at three in the morning to-morrow, so I must go on board this evening. The Yuen-tse-Fee is a very tiny craft; nothing big can get up the Peiho, so if it blows at all shan’t we just pitch about!
We are expecting the mail in hourly, but I hope to reach Peking before it.
LETTER III
Ship Yuen-tse-Fee,
In the Gulf of Pechili,
15th May 1865.
I daresay you will understand that I was rather melancholy at leaving Shanghai. For the first time on all this long journey I was to set out alone, and my hosts, although they were only recent acquaintances, had been so kind to me that I felt as if I were leaving old friends. I took leave of them at half-past eleven on Thursday night, 11th May, for as the ship was to sail at three in the morning I had to sleep on board. The harbour was dark and gloomy, and it was as much as I could do to steer the six-oared gig by the dim light of the lanterns at the various masts’ heads. In short, everything looked black and dismal, and I felt very much like going back to school after the holidays; but it don’t do to give in, and very soon after I got on board I was sleeping as sound as the rats in my cabin and bed, and an army of mosquitoes which had flocked on board, would let me. When I woke next morning we were hard and fast aground in the estuary; a thick fog had come on in the night, and the captain, missing his course, had run upon one of the many treacherous shoals of the great river. The tide took us off again at about eleven, and we went on without further accident.
I had one fellow-passenger, an officer of the purveyor’s department of the army, on his road to Peking to seek employment under the Imperial Government.
We had a strong head wind against us at first and very dirty weather on Friday night. But in spite of wind and weather the little Yuen-tse-Fee justified her name, which a Chinaman interpreted for me as “walkee all the same Fly,” and she kept up a good average of eight knots and a half.
On Sunday morning we were off the Shantung promontory, a fine broad headland with a rough, jagged outline. Notwithstanding the haziness of the atmosphere we had a good view of the coast and of the Rocky Islands which make this sea so dangerous. Passing Cape Cod, we left to the westward the spot where the unlucky Race Horse was lost, and arrived at Chihfu at about five o’clock the same evening.
For a town which really has some little commercial importance, Chihfu is certainly one of the most wretched dens I ever saw. It consists of one long narrow street of untidy stone and brick houses, the peculiarity of which is that they have no apparent front or back, so that it is a mystery how the inhabitants get into or out of them. Two or three European houses, the office of the Chinese officer of Customs, a few godowns more or less empty, and here and there a hovel built up of mud, seaweed, and bamboo matting, complete the town. Its only ornaments are the flags of the consul and of the Chinese officer. It is prettily situated at the foot of a range of low, but picturesquely tossed-about hills, and the harbour with its fleet of junks and ships looks very well from the town. The type of the inhabitants is different from that of the southern Chinese, the Tartar features are very prominent among them, and it seemed to me that they were stronger and finer men. I certainly never saw a better boat’s crew than the six men who rowed me on shore. Whether they would have the pluck to “stay” against an English crew I cannot say, but their short spurt was admirable.