You Will Remember That It Is Not Very Long Since A Piratical Party Of
Chinese, Shipping As Steerage Passengers On Board One Of These Hong
Kong River Steamers, Massacred The Officers And Captured The Boat.
On
board this great, white, deck-above-deck American steamer there is but
one European passenger beside myself, but
There are four hundred and
fifty second-class passengers, Chinamen, with the exception of a few
Parsees, all handsomely dressed, nearly all smoking, and sitting or
lying over the saloon deck up to the saloon doors. In the steerage
there are fifteen hundred Chinese steerage passengers, all men. The
Chinese are a noisy people, their language is inharmonious, and the
lower class male voices, at least, are harsh and coarse. The fifteen
hundred men seem to be all shouting at once, and the din which comes up
through the hatchways is fearful. This noisy mass of humanity is
practically imprisoned below, for there is a heavy iron grating
securely padlocked over each exit, and a European, "armed to the
teeth," stands by each, ready to shoot the first man who attempts to
force it. In this saloon there is a stand of six rifles with bayonets,
and four revolvers, and, as we started, a man carefully took the
sheaths off the bayonets, and loaded the firearms with ball cartridge.
Canton, January 1, 1879. - The Canton river for the ninety miles up here
has nothing interesting about it. Soon after leaving Hong Kong the
country becomes nearly a dead level, mainly rice-swamps varied by
patches of bananas, with their great fronds torn to tatters by the
prevailing strong breeze.
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