During the month they had spent together Captain Astley had so assiduously devoted himself to the study of Chinese that now he possessed a fair working knowledge of the Southern or Canton dialect, while every man in the battery, thanks to Rob, could express himself with a certain fluency in pidgin (business) English. All of them were on hand to see their young instructor off, and as the launch that was to carry him to his new steamer backed out from the crowded landing, their farewell cheers reminded him of Hatton, and he felt quite as lonely as he had on that first day of his eventful journey. Now, too, that he no longer had friends and regular duties to divert his mind, and with China only two days' sail away, all his anxiety concerning his parents came back with redoubled force. Would he find himself fatherless?—or would the dear face still be there with its smiling welcome? So impatient was he that the two days between Manila and Hong-Kong seemed as long as any previous two weeks of his journey, and he found himself straining his eyes for a glimpse of the China coast hours before there was any possibility of sighting it.
Finally, a number of high, rock-bound islands came into view. Then the ship, passing through a narrow entrance between two of them, threaded a tortuous, strongly fortified channel that opened into the broad, splendid harbor of Hong-Kong. On the right was the recently acquired British territory and new settlement of Kowloon, with wharves, dry-docks, godowns, and barracks. On the left rose Hong-Kong island, with the fine city of Victoria nestled at the base of a peak eighteen hundred feet high and climbing its wooded slopes. The moment the ship dropped anchor amid a fleet of great merchant steamers and men-of-war flying the flags of all the maritime nations of the world, Rob signalled one of the innumerable sampans, "manned" by Chinese women, that swarmed alongside. He already had learned that a Pearl River steamer would leave for Canton within an hour, and so anxious was he to reach his destination, which still lay some two hundred miles beyond that city, that he was determined to go on by the very first conveyance. For this reason he had his trunk and himself taken by the sampan directly from one steamer to the other, and in a short time, without having gone ashore at Hong-Kong, he found himself again under way, on board the side-wheeled, American-modelled steamer Fatshan, bound for Canton, eighty miles distant.
As Rob sat on deck watching with fascinated interest the queer-looking junks with lofty poops, low prows, and sails of matting, the sampans, Chinese guard-boats, and numberless other quaint craft slipping to and fro over those placid inland waters, with sails outlined against the dark background of the Tai-Mo-Shan Mountains, a stranger sitting near him remarked:
"Beautiful, isn't it?"
"Yes," replied Rob, promptly. "I don't believe there can be a more fascinating river-scene in all the world."
From this the two easily drifted into conversation; and at length the stranger, who proved to be a business-man from Amoy, said:
"New to this part of the world, aren't you?"
"Yes," replied Rob; "it all is new to me now, though I was born here; but my parents took me away nearly fourteen years ago."
"Indeed! May I ask where you were born?"
"Wu Hsing, up on the Si Kiang."