One
man makee go bottomside--have catchee boat. This morning no have got
tea--no can catch hot water makee boil."
And soon we were ready to start. Punctually to the appointed hour we
were at the bottom of the steep, dark incline leading down to the river
bank.
But my reckonings were bad.
The _laoban_ and the other two youthful members of the half-witted crew
had not yet taken their "chow," and this, added to many little
discrepancies in their reckoning and in mine, kept me in a boiling rage
until half-past six, when at last they pushed off, and nearly capsized
the boat at the outset. The details of that early morning, and the
happenings throughout the long, sad day, I think I can never
forget--from the breaking of tow-lines to frequent stranding on the
rocks and sticking on sandbanks, the orders wrongly given, the narrow
escape of fire on board, the bland thick-headedness of the ass of a
captain, the collisions, and all the most profound examples of savage
ignorance displayed when one has foolish Chinese to deal with. We
reached half-way at 4:30 p.m., with sixty li to do against a wind. Hour
after hour they toiled, making little headway with their misdirected
labor, wasting their energies in doing the right things at the wrong
time, and wrong things always, and long after sundown Sui-fu's pagoda
loomed in the distance.
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