power is contributed by from ten to
twenty barebacked and perspiring coolies running up a treadmill that
occupies as much room amidships as boiler and engine might. When the
taskmaster urges the coolies to do their best, one of these "hot-foot"
boats chugs along in calm water at a five-knot gait, but ordinarily
three knots an hour is the normal speed.

On the left bank of the river and close to Canton is a large leper
village, where all native craft approaching the city have to pay a
"Leper toll." If this is done as soon as the vessel reaches the suburb
the head leper gives a pass which franks the ship through; without this,
any of the numerous lepers are able to demand a fee, which has to be
paid, otherwise the junk would be surrounded by these people and all
work brought to a standstill.

CHAPTER XIII

MACAO, THE MONTE CARLO OF THE FAR EAST

A prettier marine journey than from Canton to Macao, is not possible in
the Orient, and it is of only eighty miles and accomplished by daylight
with convenient hours of departure and arrival.

As on all passenger-carrying craft plying the great estuary having Hong
Kong and Macao for its base and Canton its apex, you find the native
passengers on your boat confined below the deck whereon the state-rooms
and dining saloon of European travelers are located, and you perceive
racks of Mausers and cutlasses at convenient points of this upper deck.
To American eyes it is novel to see every stairway closed by a grated
iron door, and a man armed with a carbine on your side of each of these
barriers. You perceive on the main deck three or four hundred Chinamen
of the coolie class, some playing card games, others Smoking metal pipes
with diminutive bowls, but most of them slumbering in a variety of
grotesque attitudes. None of these Mongols who observe your curiosity
seems to hold any feeling of resentment for the effective separation of
the races, which places him, the native of the land, in a position that
might be called equivocal.

The English skipper and his Scotch engineer, who take the seats of honor
when tiffin is served, respond willingly to your appeal for an
explanation of the doors of bar-iron and the display of weapons--every
first-class passenger always asks the question, and on every trip the
British seafarers tell the story of Chinese piracy as practised up to
comparatively recent times in the great estuary having a dozen or more
names.

And an interesting ta