FOOTNOTES:
[13] This is the vessel which was wrecked on the coast of Morocco, near Cape Spartel, on December 13, 1911, having the Duke and Duchess of Fife (Princess Royal) on board.
XII
CHINA[14]
To Shanghai
From Hong Kong the Delhi ploughs her way along the Chinese coast, and next day (October 31) we are right out in the track of the north-east monsoon. The sea is high and dead against us, and the wind is so strong that we can hardly go up on deck. It becomes steadily cooler as we advance northwards.
To the east we have now the large island of Formosa, which was annexed by Japan sixteen years ago. It is about twice the size of Wales, and marks the boundary between the China Sea and the Eastern Sea, which farther north passes into the Yellow Sea. The coast and its hills are sometimes seen close at hand, sometimes far off, and sometimes they disappear in the distance. With a glass we can distinguish the lighthouses, always erected on small islands off the mainland. The Chinese coast is dangerous, being full of reefs, holms, and shallows.
Hong Kong and the adjoining seas are visited from the middle of July to the middle of September by the destructive whirlwinds called typhoons. The vortices, spinning round with tremendous rapidity, are usually formed far out in the Pacific Ocean, and gradually advance towards the mainland. They move at a rate of nine miles an hour, and therefore the weather stations on the Philippines, and other islands lying in the track of the typhoons, can send warnings by telegraph to the Chinese coast. Then the black triangle is hoisted on a tall mast in the harbour of Hong Kong, for instance, and is visible for a long distance. Every one knows what it means: a typhoon is on the way. The Chinese junks make in towards land, where they find shelter under the high coast, and all other vessels strengthen their moorings.
On November 2 we know by the yellowish-brown colour of the water that we are off the mouth of the Blue River, as the Yang-tse-kiang is called by Europeans. A pilot comes on board to take us through the dangerous, uncertain fairway, and a little later we have flat land on both sides of us, and are in the estuary of the river.