In the West River Delta there are certain villages whose inhabitants from time to time become pirates by profession. After these outlaws have plundered sufficiently they settle down again for a quiet ife.
One must disabuse oneself of the idea that magnificent great junks, with brilliant dragon heads and wild glaring eyes dash down the waterways and hold up traffic.! That is not the way it is done as a rule. A launch may be steaming} up_a narrow creek—the narrower) and the shallower the better—when a short distance ahead two sampans shoot out, one from either shore, and make as if to converge in midstream. Unless the launch is well-armed and _pluckily manned, she stands little chance of escaping without an interview. Not very long since such an incident. occurrto a launch carrying oil and flying a foreign flag. If the pilot has grit he may succeed in plunging straight forward at full speed. But he will run the severe gauntlet of armed men on either bank, ready with rifles. He has, however, tio comforting thoughts: one, that his launch is well protected by steel plating behind which his crew may shelter, and two, that the men firing on either bank run the risk of hitting each other. In the event! of his M. B. not being protected by platings, and should the firing come from only one bank, he is less fortunate.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.