What the name of the river was he had not been able to ascertain. Everybody he asked told him a different name. That is usually the case in China. One man will say a village is called the Village of the Wu family; another will say it is the Village of the Chin family; and a third will be equally certain that it is called One-Tree Village. And when you get there, you will find it is called Bad-Weather Village, or the Village of Starving Dogs. Knowing this, Frank did not bother himself about the name of the river. Provided he came to it, he would be satisfied, since the water of that river must eventually find its way into the main stream which flowed past Wu-chau to Canton, and thence to the great estuary, at the mouth of which was the island of Hong-Kong.
He reached the river at about midday. By then the heat in the valley was excessive, and the boy thoroughly exhausted. He had been travelling day and night for several days. With the exception of the almost regal banquet he had enjoyed at the house of the tea-grower, he had had insufficient nourishment. There had been few nights when he had had more than three or four hours' sleep. He felt quite unable to progress farther on foot.
He therefore hailed a fisherman whom he observed approaching down the stream in a small sampan, or river-boat. The man--so soon as he understood that a bargain was afoot--drew in to the bank and undertook for an exceedingly small sum of money to take Frank down-stream to a certain large town to which he himself was going. Frank got into the boat, and lying down beneath the matted awning that sheltered the stern part from the fierce rays of the sun, he was soon fast asleep. Whilst he slept, he covered several miles of his journey. The fisherman had hoisted a sail, and the wind being from the north, and the strength of the current great, the boat travelled at a considerable velocity.
When the boy awoke, refreshed from his sleep, he found to his surprise that the sun had set. Darkness was spreading rapidly, and a thick white mist clung to the river-valley. The atmosphere, however, was exceedingly close and humid, and the air was alive with myriads of mosquitoes and gnats.
Frank asked the fisherman where they were, and the man replied, with Oriental vagueness:
"We come soon to Kwang-Chin," said he. "That is the end of my journey!"
"And where is Kwang-Chin?" asked Frank.
"Very nice town," replied the man, evading the question. "Plenty cooked-dog shops. Little Kwang-Chin dogs are very good to eat, better than little Canton dogs."
Frank knew the uselessness of trying to get anything definite out of the fisherman. He therefore lay back in a comfortable attitude, and gave himself up to thoughts of the perilous situation in which he had left Mr Waldron and his uncle.
He wondered how far Men-Ching had progressed upon his journey to the coast. So far as he could guess, the rascal should be already in Canton. At the same time, though he did not know where the town of Kwang-Chin was, he believed that he himself could not be far from the great capital of Southern China. Canton was but a few hours by river steamboat from Hong-Kong. The boy had therefore completed the greater part of his journey.