In 1855 Mr. (afterward Bishop) Russell and myself were captured by pirates while on our way to Putu.  The most gentlemanly freebooters I ever heard of, they invited us to share their breakfast on the deck of our own junk; but they took possession of all our provisions and our junk too, sending us to our destination in a small boat, and promising to pay us a friendly visit on the island.  One of them, who had taken my friend’s watch, came to the owner to ask him how to wind it.  The Rev. Walter Lowrie, founder of the Presbyterian Mission at Ningpo, was not so fortunate.  Attacked by pirates nearly on the same spot, he was thrown into the sea and drowned.

Passing these islands we come to the Ningpo River, with Chinhai, a small city, at its mouth, and Ningpo, [Page 19] a great emporium, some twelve miles inland.  This curious arrangement, so different from what one would expect, confronts one in China with the regularity of a natural law:  Canton, Shanghai, Foochow, and Tientsin, all conform to it.  The small city stands at the anchorage for heavy shipping; but the great city, renouncing this advantage, is located some distance inland, to be safe from sea-robbers and foreign foes.

As we ascend the river we are struck with more than one peculiar mode of taking fish.  We see a number of cormorants perched on the sides of a boat.  Now and then a bird dives into the water and comes up with a fish in its beak.  If the fish be a small one, the bird swallows it as a reward for its services; but a fish of considerable size is hindered in its descent by a ring around the bird’s neck and becomes the booty of the fisherman.  The birds appear to be well-trained; and their sharp eyes penetrate the depths of the water.  Another novelty in fishing is a contrivance by which fish are made to catch themselves—­not by running into a net or by swallowing a hook, but by leaping over a white board and falling into a boat.  More strange than all are men who, like the cormorants, dive into the water and emerge with fish—­sometimes with one in either hand.  These fishermen when in the water always have their feet on the ground and grope along the shore.  The first time I saw this method in practice I ran to the brink of the river to save, as I thought, the life of a poor man.  He no sooner raised his head out of the water, however, than down it went again; and I was laughed at for my want of discernment by a crowd of people who shouted Ko-ng, Ko-ng, “he’s catching fish.”

[Page 20] The natives have a peculiar mode of propelling a boat.  Sitting in the stern the boatman holds the helm with one hand, while with the other he grasps a long pipe which he smokes at leisure.  Without mast or sail, he makes speed against wind or current by making use of his feet to drive the oar.  He thus gains the advantage of weight and of his strong sartorial muscles.  These little craft are the swiftest boats on the river.

At the forks of the river, in a broad plain dotted with villages, rise the stone walls of Ningpo, six miles in circuit, enclosing a network of streets better built than those of the majority of Chinese cities.  The foreign settlement is on the north bank of the main stream; but a few missionaries live within the walls, and there I passed the first years of my life in China.