Mr. Mennie's Trip in a District of Unrest: Pirates Squeezed Out by Troops Mr. D. Mennie has returned to Shanghai after a month spent sailing through the Yangtze Gorges and along one of the most.troubled stretches in all China, where innumerable petty warlords are struggling for power, yet strangely enough he met with scarcely anything worthy to be called an adventure. Mr. Mennie, who has only done the trip once before, went with the primary purpose of securing some photographs of the magnificent scenery in the Gorges end he was accompanied by Capt. Carey, who wished to study the river. Capt. Carey was probably successful in his object, but Mr. Mennie was disappointed. Conditions in the Gorges are not favourable for good photography, the sun seldom showing at the right time and the region being very gloomy, so that, although this is about the best time of the year for the purpose, the expedition did not bring him such good results as some other of his trips.
The journey from Ichang to Wanhsien was made by junk and the river and its banks swarmed with soldiers practically every mile of the way, whilst their mood could not have been of the best at the time, for there was then a big retreat on one side and a victorious march on the other, and it has never yet been decided which of the two. is the greater evil. However, very little trouble came the way of the junk: the Union Jack which she flew may have been her safeguard, but it is more likely that the travellers' immunity from molestation was more the reward of their strict observance of the conventions in Chinese war zones and their frank explanations to all inquirers. Time and again they were boarded for investigation and interrogation, but, although very thorough, the troops offered no harm. Curiously enough, the nearest approach to tragedy came just after they had been assured by one General that he was perfectly satisfied with them and that they need fear nothing whilst they were in his territory, for his men were in perfect control. They had scarcely left this obliging officer when a rifle spoke to them, but they found on pulling to shore that it was only the manner of summons to a halt adopted by a particularly zealous sentry, who +parently was not used to being obeyed when he spoke and preferred to use a more imperative method.
The most valuable and coveted part of the expedition evidently was the gang of frackers. There were many attempts to get hoid of these and as many wiles had to be adopted to retain them, im which the travellers were successful. They saw nothing of pirates and heard little of them.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.