suddenly in shallow water. For some time we dodged backwards and forwards trying to find a channel, but our 2700 tons (gross tonnage) and our seven-foot draught proved too much, and when noon came and went and saw us still within half a mile of where we had been at eight o'clock in the morning, it became evident that we had accidentally discovered one of those places described by an ingenuous consul as "suitable only for ships drawing little or no water." That is one of the failings of the great river: its waters fall, and what is river one day may be paddy-fields the next. The river was falling now, and on all sides as the water receded the riparian population advanced, putting up flimsy reed huts and plunging recklessly into agricultural operations.
"Sterilisque diu palus, aptaque remis,
Vicinas urbes alit, et grave sentit aratram."
Navigation under these circumstances is subject to rude surprises, and the very ship in which I had travelled to Hankow had most unexpectedly found herself constrained to spend a month
