Thousands of Tiny Mandarins Taken from Shanghai to Stock Streams Around Amoy Nursed by never-ceasing care, the last cargo of live fish for the present season was shipped down the China Const on Mar. 10 on the decks of the! $3, Taiyuan. "Thousands of the tiny diver and black Mandarin Fish are fon their way to stock the streams back of Amoy from Kiukiang and Quinsan.
These fish comprise one of the queerest but most. enterprising type cargo at present being carried in the China Coast trade. Five huge kongs each containing seven tons of fresh water were filled with ish after being transported from. river boats. The fish were poured into the ongs by means of buckets, Each bucket was filled to capacity and between thirty and forty" buckd-loads were poured into each of the five kongs, or large wooden barrels stand-Ing about six fect in height and about four feet in diameter.
As soon as the fish were in the kongs, coolles began the motion which will be perpetual until the Taiyuan arrives in Amoy. It is necessary, In order to preserve the lives of the fish, to keep the water aerated, For this reason the coolles keep constantly churning the water by means of wooden blocks which move vertically in the water. In each ong there are two such blocks, each of which is attached to a lever operated by a coolie, All the way down the coast the operator must keep moving the lever back and forth steadily, never stoping for a minute. He can sit on high stool and move the lever with his hands or, for a change, get up on top of the Kongs and operate the lover with his feet.
On the toad, one lever operated "the blocks for three kongs and another lever saw to the oxygen supply of the live cargo in the other two Kongs, set on the opposite side of the deck. It is a long terious grind for the human aeraters because only four of them are carried with 2 shipment of the fish and between them'they must keep the show going ff they do not wish to arrive with dead cargo. The season for shipping the fth'from the Yangtze River down to Amoy lasts only about two months of the year.
When coast vessels carrying such a cargo arrive in Amoy, numerous sampans go alvgside the ship and the tricky joi of unloading the fish begins. The fish are scooped out of the kong: in bucket-loads and dumped into the sampans the bottoms of which are filled with fresh water.
The fish swim freely in the bottom fof the sampans as they are carried Uup the streams to their new homes.
In being carried from their native streams (9 new waters, many of the fish die, float to the surface of the Kongs, and are thrown overboard, While many fish perish in the Journey, remarkably few are lost considering the vast number that arrive safely at their southern at destination.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.