from beneath the pillow of the lightest sleeper.
Even if detected, they are hard to catclh and
harder still to hold, for they flit away like
shadows; and their naked limbs, slippery with fish
oil, are as lithe and slimy as the surface of an
eel. Then they plunge fearlessly, diving and
swimming under water in a way to make the
very otters envious. Nothing is mean enough
to be beneath the notice of these sharp
adventurers; clothes hung in the rigging to dry, loose
sails on the booms, poultry in the boats: even
chain cable they will file through, and buoying
it up ingeniously with calabashes, tow it on
shore. If they have any special weakness, it is
for the copper off ships' bottoms. Copper is of
much value in China; the chief supplies of it
come from Japan, and the uses of it are countless.
The thieves, swimming round a vessel, rip
the sheeting off with files and chisels, and will
often escape with as much copper as will keep
them in rice and samshu for months. When the
rasping noise betrays them, they make off with
all speed, diving like ducks at the flash of every
gun levelled against them. They do not always
get off scathless. Only one was killed while I
lay at Shanghai, but afterwards, in the mouth of
the Canton river, I saw two wretches perish
miserably in the water, shot by the mates of an
American brig whose copper they had been trying
to purloin. They are always fired upon with
as little scruple as if they were wharf rats; that
being held to be the only practical method of
dealing with marauders. Theoretically, they
are given up, on capture, to be punished by their
own authorities.

It must not be supposed that the Chinese
waters are without police. A gaudy dragon-boat,
painted of all colours, comes flashing
through, the waves, like a bright kingfisher, and
darts as swiftly as a dozen oarsmen can propel
her. She is gilded as well as painted, she is
wonderfully crank of build, fitter for speed than
safety, and, on little bamboo staffs there flutter
all about her, little flags of blood-red silk. Her
head is carved into a dragon's head with open
jaws, hissing tongue, and fiery eyes. She has a
cannon mounted amidships, and would be shaken
to pieces by the recoil, did the gunner dare to
use his linstock. Often the cannon is a mere
"quaker" of painted wood or paper, admirably
wrought. In any case there are some musicians
crouched in the thwarts, making a hideous noise
with their wild instruments; there is the imperial
ensign flaunting from a lofty pole; and under an
awning more or less rich, there yawns and lolls
in the stern sheets, a mandarin, fanned by two
attendants, whose pheasant feathers and red
robes mark them as police. The mandarin is an
inferior mandarin, or he would scarcely put his
sacred person in such jeopardy as to skim to
and fro in so narrow and unsafe a boat. The
rowers, indeed, are sure to reach the shore in
case of an upset, but it would be too much to
expect of a lettered Chinese that he should
swim. Moreover, the mandarin must be a
"copper button" official of the humblest class,
or his boat would be longer and better manned.
There are dragon-boats pulling twenty-four oars,
veritable sea-serpents, shooting through smooth
waters like an ancient galley, with fine silken
pavilions over their stern-sheets, superb banners,
enormous lanterns of coloured paper, and a party
of marine veterans, who not only have matchlocks,
but can actually use them. The mandarin
of such a boat is probably a ninth-class man or
B.L. of the Pekin University, and is the port
inspector's secretary. He is the terror of the
fishermen and of the yam-sellers and washermen,
but he is not very formidable in the eyes
of thieves. The boats of commerce and petty
industry all make way for the dragon-boat, as
sheep huddle together when a dog appears.
The deputy-magistrate is charged with the
protection of the emperor's revenue, as well as of
property, philosophy, and good morals in general,
and he has keen scent for a smuggler—not for
a smuggler on a grand scale though.

An opium clipper is not often meddled with,
unless some war junk's crew is several months
in arrear of pay, and, growing mutinous and
fierce, is pacified by their commander with an
assault on some rich contraband vessel. The
retail offenders get little mercy, if caught,
and clever as the Chinese are in their hidings,
the mandarins have a rare skill also in such
thief-catching as they undertake. It is
difficult to escape by mere flight, for the dragon-boat spins along with a speed like that of a
college racing-eight, and the only hope of a fugitive
junk is to get out to sea, where, if there are
waves of any size at all, the dragon-boat knows
better than to follow. Pirates always resist,
and generally win the battle. The floating
arks, of which whole streets are always
moored together, are under strict scrutiny of
the "copper buttoned" official and his myrmidons.
The dragon-boat rushes among them, a
pike among minnows, frightening them almost
as much, for authority is awful, even when it
wears a copper button, and few men are
absolutely certain, in China, that the law has not
some hold on them for real or mock offences.
You see the mandarin helped out of his boat,
now and again, by his obsequious attendants;
you see him enter these poor marine dwellings,
while the owner kneels on the threshold, with
his hands held up to his eyes, as if dazzled by
the radiance of the copper button. The
clamorous women and children leave off making a
noise, and the whole ark is hushed while the
literary iack-in-office makes his domiciliary
visit. There are so many possible accusations
about opium, smuggled gunpowder, theft, secret
societies, and little frauds, that the mandarin is
sure of his bribe, and the policemen are sure of
their bribes: even the rowers and musicians are
sure of their extorted drink of fiery spirit or hot
wine, with perhaps a day's consumption of
tobacco. If the mandarin does not come out
of the ark a richer man than he went in, by
a few cash or pistareens at least, the family
must be wretchedly poor or most conspicuously
innocent and obstinate. These harbour
inspectors and their subalterns used, before 1840,