OPIUM not being a contraband in the British colony of Hong Kong, it is taken there from Calcutta in large quantities, then smuggled into China by the Chinese; our work, therefore, was to prevent this as far as possible.

An officer from each of the Revenue cruisers took it in turn to spend the night cruising in the steam-pinnace, having on board about eight seamen armed with rifles and cutlasses, and the pinnace fitted with a three-barrelled Nordenfeldt gun in the bows.

I found the movements of the junks most interesting to watch, for the fishing junks worked their trawls in pairs and all those junks worked in one direction, so that as soon as a sail in the distance was seen to be moving in another direction, one of the pairs chased and overhauled her.

Once, when on a Revenue steamer in search of Chinese junks smuggling from Singapore to the Island of Hainan, the southernmost possession of China, I had an interesting experience. We were at sea out of sight of land, picking up a junk that was sailing at a great rate before the fresh S.W. monsoon — the then prevailing wind. After she had been stopped by firing a shot across her bows, a gig was lowered all ready manned, with me in charge. On boarding the junk I had all the hatches opened; they were packed with opium, in fact there was no other cargo aboard. I at once semaphored to my ship and then had my boat loaded with bags of opium, while I stood on a water tank in order to overlook proceedings and see that there was no foul play. I was also in a position where no one could get behind me, and as I carried a revolver to give a good impression, I felt secure even though the junk's crew was a particularly large one for her size.

After the boat had made several journeys and all the opium had been transferred to the ship, we found that our seizure consisted of thirty chests of opium, i.e., 1,200 balls of opium (each ball being about 42 inches in diameter and weighing 4+ lbs.). We then escorted our prize to a harbour on the south coast of Hainan Island, called Yulin Kan, where we had made our headquarters during the S.W. monsoon, which was the favourite time for smugglers. The prize money received for that particular seizure was considerable even in those days, when opium was comparatively cheap in China.

One night while watching for smugglers off the south coast of Hong Kong Island, I lay down as usual — as I used to be out all night — with my head just above the gunwale. I have no doubt my crew thought I was asleep. From where I lay I could see the hundreds of trawlers drifting in pairs with a net between them.

Suddenly, to the astonishment of the cox'n I rose, giving instructions to go full speed, and taking the helm myself, made for a junk in the far distance which I had noticed was not drifting; I discovered contraband on board, and seized her.

On another occasion, on a dark night when there was a high wind, the cox'n by my orders hailed a large junk and told it to heave-to. A woman replied in Chinese, of which I did not understand a word. The cox'n, however, handed the tiller over to me without saying a word, jumped into the well of the steam-pinnace in front of me and took a packet of cartridges and a rifle, which he then handed to me, saying, " He say he shoot! " — knowing quite well that no one in the boat was allowed to fire a shot unless given instructions to do so. I at once ordered full speed in chase of the junk, which was travelling at a good speed in the fresh, squally weather. As I did so I noticed that the Chinese crew of the pinnace removed the forward hood, cleared away the machine gun in the bows, and buckled on their side arms to be ready for any emergency, so that I was relieved of any preparatory instructions.

When we got alongside and boarded the junk, its captain was full of apologies, explaining that he had thought we were pirates. Perhaps he did, but I know that I spent a few unpleasant moments when passing along the side of that tall junk to get to her forepart, which, being lower than the rest of the junk, afforded the best place to board. I was not justified in opening fire until fired upon. This particular junk had a crew of sixteen men, and the captain had his wife on board, and it was she who had replied to our hail from the stern.

In the autumn of 1891 it was learned that a Chinese political party, known as the " Ka-lao Hui," were becoming active on the Yangtze, and in order to protect the Europeans at the ports of Chin Kiang and Ichang, the Inspector-General of Customs — Sir Robert Hart — sent the Revenue cruisers, Fei Hoo and Lin Feng.




I had the luck to be appointed first officer of the Fei Hoo, and as both vessels called at Shanghai on their way up the Yangtze, I was able to make some good friends there. Shanghai was a large city even in 1891, but by the time I left China, in 1924, it had more than doubled in size. It is built on flat alluvial soil, and the British concession was a rectangular piece of land with a frontage of about a mile on the Whangpoo river, which flows into the Yangtze some fifteen miles below the British concession of Shanghai. The Soochow creek forms the northern boundary and the defence creek the western boundary, the latter creek being about a mile from the Bund.

In the old days there was a racecourse in the British concession mentioned above. This had, long before 1891, been moved outside the defence creek, and though the settlement now extends many miles beyond the racecourse, races are still run there — which is unique in the centre of a large city. I often stopped at the Race Club on race days, while on my way home to lunch.

On the south side is the French concession with the Chinese city beyond, while on the north side of the Soochow creek there are the American and Japanese concessions, now added to the British concession and known as the International Settlement.

Chin Kiang, though a small treaty port, was made charming by the hospitality of its residents. Once when a concert was given at the Town Hall, which I helped to decorate with our flags, a gentleman gave an account of a visit he had made to Syria and Palestine; some days later that gentleman called on our captain, but as he was ashore I had the opportunity of telling him how interested I had been in his lecture, and that I had spent the first thirteen years of my life in Syria.

I did not, however, tell him that I had noticed that most of the information he had given was from a book written by a friend of ours. The lecturer had only spent two weeks in the Near East, and in those days one could not see much in that time. Today, with good roads, motor cars and railways, it would be easier.

He was naturally surprised to find that he had a man amongst his audience who knew more about the Near East than he did! He had not travelled enough to know how small the world is.

While at Chin Kiang I visited Nangking, where a former instructor in H.M.S. Worcester was Navigational Instructor at a Chinese college. Nangking was not a treaty port in 1891, and as the steamer I was travelling in arrived at night, I had to spend the night on a hard wooden bench in a mud hut, using my suitcase as a pillow and covering myself with a blanket that my friend had sent by his servant, for it was mid-winter, and no one could enter or leave the city by night, and the college was situated within the city wall.

There is excellent pheasant and wildfowl shooting to be had near Chin Kiang. The picturesque features of the port are the Chinese monasteries on Silver Island and Golden Island; the latter is now inland owing to the alteration of the river bed.

After a very pleasant winter off Chin Kiang we returned to Shanghai, and the Fei Hoo functioned as the lights tender for the local Shanghai lights — of which there were seven — and two lightships with European light-keepers, with a Chinese staff under them, and four with Chinese in charge. Our duties were to take out pay, stores, provisions and relieving light-keepers, which was a great responsibility for so small a vessel as the Fei Hoo, which only had sufficient accommodation for her own crew. However, we managed somehow, notwithstanding that one light station was two hundred miles from Shanghai. But we were badly at a loss when a whistling buoy-10 feet in diameter, with an 18 by 2 foot underwater tube — broke adrift while the large iron lighthouse tender was away.

The Ariadne Rock whistling buoy to which I refer was secured to its anchor by a 1½-inch cable — that is to say, the iron of which the links were made was 1½ inches in diameter, and the Ariadne Rock, which the buoy marks, was outside the estuary of the Yangtze, where the tide attained the velocity of eight knots.



The cable had snarled (or caught) on a rocky projection, and in the heavy seas during a gale had parted some twenty fathoms from the buoy. This cable kept the buoy from drifting fast. Owing to some mischance, the tide and wind threw us to windward of the buoy after we had hold of it, and for a time we ran great risk of the buoy bumping a hole in our wooden side. With the strong tide and wind our low-power engines could not extricate us from the fix, even though we had twin screws. The captain on the bridge was at his wits' end, so I acted on my own — and told the second officer to bring the end of a hawser from the stern along the weather side to me, which end I had secured to the ship's cable outside the hawsepipe (for we were well anchored) — then told him to haul it taut and fasten it securely to the mizen mast. When this was done, I paid out sufficient cable for the long tube of the whistling buoy to free itself from the ship's bottom and allow the buoy to drift astern. We then towed it to Shanghai, with its cable trailing along the bottom of the sea, for we, a small wooden gunboat, had no appliances with which to handle so large and heavy a buoy.

The Fei Hoo was also engaged in surveying the mouth of the Yangtze, i.e., a section of some hundred miles in length and about eight miles wide, which is divided into two channels by mud flats, and islands.

The south channel is the one used by all but northward-bound vessels.

In order to carry out this survey work, wooden trestle beacons were erected and permanently maintained. These stood about seventy-five feet above the ground, and had an eight-foot platform on the top, which was to support a theodolite for triangulation purposes; and when it was not in use, a mast with a six-foot wickerwork fleck ball was hoisted through a hole in the centre of the platform, and made a good mark. The distances were so great, however, that even these high marks were difficult to carry when fixing soundings by sextant angles from the vessel in running lines of soundings.

These surveys were made up into the required form for producing charts, and a tracing was sent to the British Hydrographer at the Coast Inspector's office, by a very efficient staff of Chinese cartographers and tracers. In later years his department produced and sold its own charts.

I must here explain that while a Commissioner of Customs represents the Inspector-General at each of the several treaty ports, the Coast Inspector was in charge at Shanghai, under the Inspector-General, of all Marine affairs and the maintenance of all lights and aids to navigation on the coast, rivers and ports of China. He functions in an advisory capacity to the Commissioners and Harbour Masters of the several treaty ports in all Marine affairs, i.e., pilotage, buoyage and lighting, while the re-survey of the harbours was made by the Coast Inspector's staff. The Coast Inspector was assisted by the Harbour Masters of each port, under the direction of the Coast Inspector of Customs of the port. On the Yangtze the lights and aids to navigation were maintained by the Lower and Upper Yangtze River Inspectors, with their staffs and fleet of launches, who were members of the Coast Inspector's staff. The several Revenue cruisers also came directly under the Coast Inspector as head of the Marine Department.

Then, again, there was the Engineer-in-Chief, who, with a large staff, built lighthouses and Customs buildings, and repaired them. Both he and the Coast Inspector ranked with Commissioners, but functioned at the several treaty ports in consultation with the several Commissioners on inter-port matters.

In 1893 I was transferred to the Ping Ching, a vessel that had been a merchant steamer and had been adapted for lights and buoy work.

She tended all the lights on the coast between Newchwang in the north and the Hainan Straits in the south. As most of the lighthouses are built on the hilltops of uninhabited islands, some two hundred feet above the sea, you will readily understand that the vessel's crew had hard work in delivering coal, oil and stores to the several light stations.

A friend of ours, a young fellow named Norman Dyer, who used to have lunch with us on board the Ping Ching of a Sunday, told us one day that he had left the firm he was in (Gibb Livingstones) and joined an insurance man, named Furlonge. I thereupon asked Dyer if he would find out whether his boss remembered me, as I had met a man of his name at Calcutta in 1882.

The following Sunday, Dyer told me that Furlonge remembered me very well and would be glad if I would come and see them — for he was married. I called, and found his wife a charming woman; she became one of my best friends and lives near us now, her husband having died some years ago.

While at Chefoo a few months later, I learned that the British Minister, Mr. O'Connor (afterwards Sir Nicholas) was spending the summer there. He occupied the British Consular residence, and as I had an introduction to him I called, and was invited to lunch the following day — Sunday — and it was arranged that I was to meet the Vice-Consul at the Chefoo Club and walk to the house with him. He introduced me to two men on the Minister's staff, but as we were all English none of us got the other's name. I mention this fact because I have noticed that this is a peculiarity of our race.

I was seated at lunch next to one of the two men mentioned above. During the meal a note was handed to Mr. O'Connor, and was passed down the table until it reached the man sitting next to me. He looked at the name on the note and then asked me if I had a relation in Cyprus, the note being for me. I told him that my father had been Consul-General at Beyrout in Syria, which was opposite to Cyprus. I then asked him what his name was, and when he said it was Cockburn (pronounced " Co'burn "), I found that we knew each other's people, but we two, who were out in China, had never met before.

At about this period the popular captain of the Ling Feng was granted home leave, and the captain and officers of the Customs cruisers Ping Ching, Kai Pan and Lin Feng gave him a send-off dinner at the Astor House Hotel — then the finest hotel in Shanghai.

Many guests were invited and Captain Anderson of the Ping Ching (a Dane), being the senior member of the party, presided. He was a cheery old man, who gave the banquet a suitable finish by ordering a large punchbowl to be placed on the table with a loaf of sugar inside. (White sugar was often sold in those days in large cones about nine inches high, and were called " loaves.") Next, bottles of champagne, brandy, whisky, gin, vermouth and liqueurs were emptied over the cone of sugar, and when the large bowl was well filled with the liquid it was set alight. It took the combined efforts of the party to blow the flame out, which they luckily managed to do before the heat broke the bowl, for then the table cloth would have caught fire and goodness knows how everything would have ended. As it was, Captain Anderson ladled out a tumblerful of the punch for each person, and all were expected to drink the stuff as they sang, " For he's a jolly good fellow! " Personally, I tucked my tumbler behind a large fern tree growing in a tub after I had taken one sip, for I felt sure that I would have a headache next morning if I drank it.

Captain Anderson — who was married and lived ashore when the ship was in port — sent me a note next day to say that the after-effects of the punch confined him to his bed! So far as I know, he was the only one who paid the penalty, so I imagine that the others must have followed my example. For myself, as I always got up early and usually ran some five miles into the country before dawn, I avoided the risk of taking punch at night.

I will now recount two stories which will show the adaptability of sailors.

Once, while at work on a survey of the Yangtze estuary, the mirrors of my sextant became dim; so after knocking off work in the evening I re-silvered them, replaced them the next morning and used that sextant constantly from eight o'clock that morning for several years, without having to repair it in any way.

Those of my readers who have re-silvered their own sextant mirrors will understand how difficult it was to handle them before the quicksilver used had properly set.

On another occasion, when in the wilds, I had to take some sextant angles, but on taking the instrument out of its box, found that of the three clips holding the index glass or mirror in place, one had broken off and the mirror was loose. My companion, who had been carrying the sextant box, was much put out, as he thought the mishap was due to his carelessness. I told him that there was no need to worry, and thereupon picked up a cartridge of a 12-bore gun which we had with us, and with my jack knife cut a piece of brass off its base and improvised a clip, then adjusted my sextant and used it for many months before I had an opportunity of taking it to an instrument maker for repairs. In both cases the angles measured by that sextant were accurate.

I will explain to those who have never used a sextant that it is an instrument with which to measure angles; it enables the navigator or surveyor, when afloat, to fix his position by either heavenly bodies or fixed objects on land.