But it is not only the dangers: of navigation from shallow water and hard rocks that brings exch ment td the officers. There has: arisen a condition of affairs which, if not stopped, may make shipping on the upper' river hardly worth carrying on. That is the amount of smuggled cargo that is being carried. It is not uncommon for this to be one third of the total weight carried. The native crews. seem to think that the good wages they receive are not sufficient for the dangers which they run, or. St_may just be the native's greed for the extra chance. Recently one heard of one ship which had as much as 80 tons of smuggled goods on board, and the total carrying capacity at low water was only 180 tons, All sorts of things which ought to go up as ordinary freight. are cartied—cases of sugar, bags of floor, cases of cigarettes," steel rods, ketosono te. Much of it is not. even carefully covered up, but other eases many are the queer places which are used to secrete the goods. This state of affairs has Become so bad that the—ship's oticers (on many of them there is only one foreign officer), quite unable to deal with it, and, if they make too strenuous a fight for curtailing it, are in danger of their lives.
Recently two ships flying the! American flag were compelled to go alongside the U.S.S. "Bleano" and under the protection thereby received many tons of smuggled goods were pitched over-board, the Eleano men in the meantime keep-' ing the sampan men at a safe distance by playing the fire hose of them. One ship's captain coming down to his ship found that during his absence the crew had raised the Plimsol mark. The crow usually do not own the goods. 'They are only carrying it for what they can get, and so, if it is lost, they do not' suffer.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.