Thursday, being the Sth day of the Sth moon, the dite of the annual Dragon-Boat Festival, was keet, as usual, as a general holiday by the Chinese population, The Huangpu and neighbouring creeks accordingly resounded with the noise of fire crackers, bombs, drums and an occasional bugle note which gave like air to ove of the dragon boats, which suid was manned by a number of sailors belonging to one of the Chinese cruisers lying in the harbour.
At about noon five dragon boats, the crews of exch one uniformed ina particular colour, such as red, yellow, blue, white, and black, to distinguish one boat from the other, propelled by from 40 to 50 paddles each, and gorgeously decorated, came down the river from the direction of the native city. After circling round, as if in search of something in the water, and performing various evolutions opposite the Shanghai Club, the dragon boats formed again into single file, and paddled past the Public Gardens and turned up into the Soochow Creek, where similar evolutions were performed. Wherever the dragon boats performed, besides firing off bombs and fire crackers themselves, they were also greeted in the same manner by junks and boats in the vicinity, as a compliment to them and t" secure for themselves good luck for the rest of the year.
ie boats this year were more expensively and therefore more gorgeously decorated than those of previous years, brought about by the desire of those hongs and junks who contributed towards the "show" to secure more favour from the deities who look after the destinies of those who go down to the sea in ships, owing to the bad luck of the previous year. The procession was watched with interest by numbers of foreigners and Chinese, who crowded the Bund and river banks as well as the bridges over the ¢ suchers Sreek through hich the boats passed, The origin of the Dragon-Boat Fes-rival is traditionally siid to follows:—Some five centuries before the Christian era, China Proper was divided into large number of separate Kingdoms, amongst the largest and most Powerful of which was the Kingdom of 's'u, now comprising the Viceroyalty of Hunin and Hupeh, with a portion of the Lisngkiang provinces—Kiangsi—and part of Kueichou province. About that time the throne of the Kingdom of Ts'u was usurped by an uncle of the rightful prince, in consequence of which the then senior prime minister, Ch'ii Yuan, an earnest patriot and "famed throughout the country asa man of great probity and honesty, promptly resigned his post. This the usurping prince refused to permit, and Chit Yuan was placed under surveillance. He, however, managed to effect his escape and return to his native town on the binks of the Hsiang River, where he kept himself in concealment for some t But as news of the constantly increasing excesses committed by the prince came to his ears, coupled with the groans of an overburden ed and trampled upon people who had been again and again ground down to the earth, and the fact that the numerous memorials he had sent to the prince begging the latter to reform his ways and to dismiss the traitors around the throne, were as persistently ignored, Ch'it Yuan "despaired of ever seeing the Kingdom of Ts'u reformed, and so one day" he jumped into the Hsiang river as the only means of shutting off from himself the sight of his fullow. countrymen's distresses.' This occurred on the Sth day of the Sth moon, and although search was immediately made along the river for Ch'ii Yuan's corpse, it was unsuccessful. Two days afterwards Yuan's body floated up to the surface of the river, his hands grasping a bostpaddle, The wicket prince, hearing of the circumstances of Ch'ii Yuan's death, repented somewhat of his conduct, and save the dead Minister the posthumous honour of a Dragon prince. Hence the origin of the Dragon boats and the any ceremony of searching for Chi Yuan's corpse at oh anniversary of his suicide by drowning, namely, the Sth day of the 3th moon,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.