Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: II THE Nan-Shan was on her way from the southward to the treaty port of Fu-chau with some cargo in her lower holds and two hundred Chinese coolies returning to their village homes in the province of Fo-Kien, after a few years of work in various tropical colonies. The morning was fine, the oily sea heaved without a sparkle, and there was a queer white, misty patch in the sky like a halo of the sun. The fore-deck, packed with Chinamen, was full of sombre clothing, yellow faces, and pigtails, and sprinkled over with a good many naked shoulders, for there was no wind, and the heat was close. The coolies lounged, talked, smoked, or stared over the rail; some, drawing water over the side, sluiced each other; a few slept on hatches, while several small part- chapter{Section 4ies of six sat on their heels, surrounding iron trays with plates of rice and tiny teacups; and every single Celestial of them was carrying with him all he had in the world?a wooden chest with a ringing lock and brass on the corners, containing the savings of his labour: 'some clothes of ceremony, sticks of incense, a little opium maybe, bits of nameless rubbish of conventional value, and a small hoard of silver dollars, toiled for in coal-lighters, won in gambling-houses or in petty trading, grubbed out of earth, sweated out in mines, on railway lines, in deadly jungle, under heavy burdens?amassed patiently, guarded with care, cherished fiercely. A cross swell had set in from the direction of Formosa channel about ten o'clock without disturbing these passengers much, because the Nan-Shan, with her flat bottom, rolling chocks on bilges, and great breadth of beam, had a reputation of an exceptionally steady ship in a seaway. Mr. Jukes, in moments of expansioron shore, would proclaim loudly that the old girl wa.