"Those damned Chinks again, trying to escape the Devil!"
"What's the matter, Pop?" some one asked the captain.
"That sampan full of Chinks was trying to get away from the River Devil, so they shot across our bow to fool him and we nearly ran them down."
"Do they often indulge in that little friendly game with the Devil?" I asked him, smiling at his seriousness.
"Every time we enter one of these rivers they do it. I killed six of them going up the river at Shanghai a year ago. It gives me the creeps every time I see them shoot across our bow. A ship like this will cut 'em in two like a knife!"
We looked over the green railing of the Santa Cruz. The big ship had almost come to a stop for the engines were still in reverse and the shallow river mud was churned up until the otherwise clear water looked like a muddy pond. The little sampan, full of grinning, naked Chinese coolies was fifty feet away from us, and our American sailors were swearing at them in every language they knew and shaking big, brawny, brown fists in their grinning direction.
It was considered a joke by the passengers but it was a very real thing to these poor ignorant Chinese. One sees this happen everywhere in the Orient. For the Chinaman starts out every morning in his sampan with the worst kind of a River Devil after him. He must rid himself of that Devil. So, when a big ship comes into sight, he waits until its bow is very close and then darts in front of its pathway. The idea is, that when a sampan full of Chinamen shoots in front of a big ship the Devil is supposed to follow the ship all that day, and let the Chinese junk or sampan alone.
CONFUCIUS' TOMB AT CHUFU, CHINA.