The steamers running on the Yangtze in the early days with which these memories are _concerned were—ae Captain Lunt, Marine Superintendent of the China Merchants,' has been kind Jenough to remind me—the Fire Queen, the Fire-cracker, the Fire-dart, and the Plymouth Rock, and two of these were of the old-fashioned type, carrying their boilers and funnels on the outside like the old time Mississippi boat As their speed was very much less han that of the more modern boats, their journeys up to Hankow against a strong current were a long and tedious affair, occupying some five to six days, and they were also further hampered by the very defective charting of the River in those early days. They were all replaced by new ships of a speedier and better type, of which the str. Nanking (renamed Kiangfoo) and the str. Hupeh (renamed Kiangteen) were the first comers in 187: Others were the Moyune, the Fusiyama, the Hirado, the Hangchow and Fychow, all modern ships, and when the fleet of steamers was sold by Russell & Ca, (the old Shanghai Steam Navigation Company) to the present China Merchants 8. N. Ca., they were gradually replaced by more modern iron ships, and the old wooden ships (with the exception of the Kiangfoo and the Kiangteen) were sold to be broken up.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.