As aforesaid, this delayed us nearly the whole night, and when we got to Kaoyu the next day at about the hour when we should have been nearing Chinkiang, our coal was all consumed. The officer told me he was so anxious to lose no time that during the whole delay he had not allowed the fire to go out and had thus burnt several piculs of coal, Thus at Kaoyu we had a most exasperating delay of two hours to buy a few baskets of cml. We then managed to make sixty-six more li to Shaopeh where the same cosling process was necessary and lost another hour and a-half, When we got to Yangchow, about dusk, it was decided that we should stop there for the night. The above-mentioned officer declared to me that he would start the nest morning without any delay swhatever. When the morning came I called him up-at early daylight and reminded him of the promise to start early. He simply answered in the most innocent way that we should have to be examined by the Customs, should have to buy coal, efcetera. The case becoming desperate I hurried the Customs on board to examine the goods and went to the tug office to hurry up the purchase of coal. After a great deal of talk and promise on their part to bring the coal, it finally came to the surface that they had not enough money on board or in the office to buy the coal. So in sheer desperation I loaned the company money to run the steamer to Chinkiang.
TO MAKE MATTERS WORSE, the men on the passenger bent were not on penceable terms with the engineer on the tug and vexatious delays were caused by the tug refusing to hitch on promptly and start off We finally reached Chinkian, twenty-four hours after we were due, all o which delay could have been avoided but for unspeakable dishonesty and bad management. Your correspondent has made many trips into the interior and travelled in so doing many thousands of miles, but never before did he travel under such exasperating circumstances.
7th February.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.