de
fast at the top with a lashing.

In beating to windward these cut-waters were in position, but when
running free they were unshipped and laid on the foredeck.

Wherever foreigners congregate, but more especially at Shanghai and up
the Yangtse, the house-boat, combining comfort, convenience and fair
sailing powers, is a favourite means of getting about on shooting
trips and picnics, and altogether forms an important feature of the
pleasant existence which we lead in the Far East.

The hull usually resembles that of a light-draught yacht, with either
a drop-keel or lee-boards, so that shallow creeks may be readily
entered.

In rig they are semi-Chinese, the shape of the sail being that of the
ordinary balanced lug, which bamboo reefing battens with a sheet-line
leading from the extremity of each to the main-sheet render extremely
handy and safe. A jib can also be set, but as it destroys the
simplicity of the rig it is greatly disliked by the crew and therefore
seldom utilised.

The particular craft which I have now in mind is an excellent
sea-boat, fast and comfortable, has a fine cabin with four berths,
tables folding on either side of the centre-board well, and capable of
seating a dozen, stove, gun-racks, glass and bottle brackets and
numerous lockers. There is also a bathroom and lavatory, a kitchen
with good cooking range, quarters forrard for the crew--which consists
of the lowdah and four sailors, together with cook, boy and
dog-coolie--while on deck are the water-tanks, kennels, and a small
sampan by way of a jolly.

Replete with every comfort, a shooting-box for the sportsman and a
sure refuge for the overworked, the house-boat represents to me the
acme of leisure and repose.

"And the night shall be fill'd with music,
And the cares that infest the day
Shall fold their tents like the Arabs,
And as silently steal away."

CHAPTER VI

JAMBOREES

It is nearing twenty years ago since I celebrated my last bump supper
in my old college at Cambridge, but the remembrance of it is so bright
and cheering in the monotony of daily life that time is much abridged,
and it seems but yesterday that the two pailfuls of smoking milk punch
worked such deadly havoc amongst four crews of well-trained men that
ultimately they were mostly laid out in a row, with consequent sore
heads and interviews with the dean next morning. A bump supper is an
orgy never to be forgotten.

A jamboree is