with fair weather and favorable tides reach Hangchow the next afternoon anywhere after three o'clock. Three companies are now running these trains, two Chinese and one Japanese. Everything is managed in a creditable and business-like fashion, and one can make a fairly comfortable trip at reasonable expense. It is possible, using this launch service, to leave Shanghai on Friday night, see the Saturday night and Sunday afternoon bores, and be back in Shanghai on Monday morning. By private launch even better time can be made and a record round-trip of sixty hours, allowing fifteen hours at Raining to witness both a day and a night bore, and five hours of shooting during the return, was made by some Shanghai enthusiasts in October, 1902. On the other hand, the pleasures of house-boating in the region traversed, especially during the fall months, should not be underestimated, and if one is not pressed for time a very comfortable and interesting trip on a private boat, propelled by yulow and pole and landing you at the Haining Pagoda at the end of the third day from Shanghai, will allow a full enjoyment of the various scenes which enliven the river and canal banks throughout the Yangtse's delta. A satisfactory compromise between these two plans may be effected by taking a cabin passage on a launch train as far as Samen on the Grand Canal, which is reached at noon of the day after leaving Shanghai, and then hiring a native boat to be yulowed along narrow, well-shaded canals to Haining, which under fair conditions should be reached by six or seven o'clock that evening.
Leaving the wharf in Soochow Creek, Shanghai, shortly before
Samen—Hainung—Hangchow.
