To those of my readers who have not experienced a typhoon I would explain that typhoons, hurricanes, cyclones and tornadoes are all rotary storms of varying dimensions, speed and velocity, all of which information may seem double-Dutch to some. You meet cyclones in the Indian Ocean, hurricanes off Mauritius and the West Indies, tornadoes off the East coast of South America, and typhoons in the Chinese seas.

They are all rotary storms occupying a circular space on the ocean which we will call its area. These areas move as a ship does, along the surface of the water, and also over land at a speed which may vary from one to twenty miles an hour, while the velocity of wind in the storm may exceed one hundred miles an hour.

In a gale, when the wind blows from every direction, conditions can be uncomfortable enough, but when that same gale has a rotary motion the sea becomes confused and is therefore rendered far more dangerous for vessels in the typhoon area; so, naturally, small vessels do their best on the appearance of a typhoon to seek the best shelter possible, or else they try to escape altogether from the storm area.

(glass = barograph)
An example of a barograph trace during the passage of a typhoon (hurricane) over Guam. The pressure falls by about 1.5 inches of mercury (~50 hPa) during about a 12 hour period.

Once, when entering the Hainan Straits from the Tongking Gulf, the glass indicated the presence of a typhoon, so the cruiser was at once anchored in Mami Harbour, which afforded good shelter from all directions except from the north-west. The day was fine, with a blue sky, but as the north wind freshened during the afternoon, we realised when too late that we would get the strongest wind from the north-west, in which direction we had no visible protection; still, the distance to the north coast of the Tongking Gulf being within 200 miles, there was not enough room for a mountainous sea to rise, and the tide running through the Hainan Straits broke up the sea very considerably and afforded us some protection. Still, when the typhoon came it was pretty bad, and even though we had three anchors down, owing to the strain put on the engines by the cables, we dragged our anchors and it was touch and go whether we would not be dashed on to the rocky shore to the stern of us.

We naturally watched both aneroid and mercurial barometers; the former went out of action during the height of the storm owing to the low pressure of the atmosphere, and a heavy sea through the saloon nearly washed away the mercurial barometer. Suddenly the gale died away and we were becalmed, which showed that the centre of the typhoon was passing over us, and that the wind would very soon rage again from the opposite direction to that from which it had previously blown. This, in due course, it proceeded to do, but we were now sheltered by the land and, as the glass commenced to rise, those of us who were not on watch could go below and get some sleep. There had been no rest for anyone during the twelve hours the wind had raged from the north-west, as the ship had to be battened down to prevent the heavy seas we shipped from flooding the little vessel.

I have been through many typhoons in my life, but often dreaded those on shore more than those at sea.

A typhoon may wreck a town and upset everything for days, causing many deaths, the collapsing of houses and inundations, which are all very terrible; and it is one's business to maintain floating aids to navigation, marking the approaches to a large shipping port, as a typhoon may cause light-ships and buoys to break away from their moorings, rendering navigation to and from the port impracticable till those aids have been replaced.

In 1898 I received instructions to carry on the preventive work off Hainan. The Commissioner of Customs, Mr. Sehoenecke, was very kindly disposed towards me, and usually asked me to stay at his house when my ship was in port. As Dr. M (the missionary I mentioned in Chapter XIV, who was then at Kiangchow), had secured funds while on leave in America with which to build himself a fine hospital, with a house in the grounds for himself and his family, there was another good friend who was always pleased to see me; besides which, I knew several members of a German firm, also the Customs staff and a number of American missionaries at the city of Kiangchow.

I have in a former chapter stated that Yulin Kan was the harbour we used at the south of the island, and that our mails were sent there by courier. As I was now on my own, I decided to make a change and use the harbour of Chunlan, which was situated up a river on the east coast of Hainan, and was a comparatively short distance across country from Hoihow.

The channel to the anchorage some miles inland was, I had been told, both shallow and narrow. The mouth of the river forming the harbour passed between an extensive coral reef, so that my first objective was to make a survey of the channel in order to be independent of pilots.

I arrived off Chunlan one morning, and as there was a small fishing boat with two men in it nearby, I sent the bos'n, who was a Chinese, in a gig with instructions to bring the old man back with him. Instead of this he returned with the younger man, saying that the other did not want to leave the boat. As I did not feel inclined to trust the young man to pilot my ship, I anchored and went in the gig myself to a sand spit where I saw a number of men, who I asked to supply me with a pilot. Their reply was, that as the tide was falling none of them could take me up the channel.

To this I retorted, " If you will stay here a few minutes you will see me pass without your assistance." On returning to the ship I sent the young fisherman back to his boat, with instructions to the bos'n to bring the old man whether he wanted to come or not, reminding him that we flew the Chinese flag. I then ordered steam and weighed anchor, so that when the bos'n brought the elderly fisherman on to the bridge I told him, " You are the pilot and the anchor is just coming up — woe betide you if the ship touches ground! "

He took in the situation at once and told the quarter-master how to steer; I noticed that he was a bit nervous at times, but all went well, we reached the anchorage safely, and I paid him what I considered his due.

On arrival I was called on by a Chinese official, to whom I explained through my interpreter that, as I was going to make a survey of the channel, I would like to use a high pagoda which was standing in a walled enclosure as a mark, and asked if I might have the key to the enclosure. He made a promise to get it which he did not fulfil, so I had to manage without it.

The city of Chunlan lies about six miles up river from the anchorage, and as it is customary for one officer to call on another, I sent my Chinese card with a word that I would call at ten o'clock next morning, but before my card-bearer returned, the official himself (the Tao-tai) called on me, explaining that there was sickness in the city, and as I might contract an illness if I visited it he had come to stop me. To which I replied — suspecting his real motive — that as I was a much younger man than he I ran less risk of catching anything, but I would not enter the city if he did not wish me to do so.

On my next visit I proceeded up-river in a sampan, and landed below the city accompanied by the Chief Engineer, one of my seamen to carry a large prismatic compass, and one of the sampan men. We made for a hill that lay some eight miles inland from the city; the country was flat and open, and we had to cross a small stream near the hill by means of a boat that was kept there for that purpose. After I had taken a round of bearings, I noticed a large number of men running towards the hill. Suspecting trouble, I packed up the prismatic compass and handed it to my men.

When the strange men arrived I told them I was thirsty and asked them to get me a couple of cocoanuts. They all seemed very excited but did not hinder us from leaving the hill and going back, but when we were crossing the stream an attempt was made to upset the boat, of which I took no notice.

When on the road we made quite a long procession, the Chief Engineer and I leading. Soon after we had started, two men, stripped to the waist, ran ahead of us and turned and walked backwards, going through the Boxer gesticulations of gouging out eyes and other fantastic contortions; while they were doing this those behind us sang out, " Strike and kill! " We had a quiet retriever dog with us, and some of the men tried to annoy him by throwing pebbles at him. Remembering that the engineer was rather bad-tempered and carried a heavy stick, I told him that we were in a tight place and that he must not get angry and use his stick or the mob would make it an excuse to set on us. I added to the two men in front, " Look amused, smile, to show that you are enjoying the fun and keep smiling." Every now and then those two men were relieved by others, but the pantomime continued. I knew that we had to pass a village and hoped that our troubles would end there.

The noise made by the mob behind was heard by the villagers long before we reached their village, with the result that when we did arrive all its inhabitants were standing outside their huts waiting to see what was happening. When we got near enough I smiled at the elders as much as to say that I was enjoying the fun, and as my smile was returned I knew that nothing would happen, because the villagers would not join the mob. Our unwelcome escort left us soon after, and we returned to the ship unmolested.

Next morning I tried to get to another hill on the coast farther north and took with me one Chinese sailor, who carried my sextant. After passing through a cocoanut plantation, we had a good way to walk along a sandy shore to get to the hill. To avoid the soft sand I walked along the dunes at the side. After an hour or so we came to an enclosure and I entered the gateway. Just inside there were a young man and a boy, and I told the former that I was very hot and would probably be thirsty when I returned in about two hours, so would he be kind enough to get me two cocoanuts by then, so that I might have something to drink. He said that he would not be able to leave the enclosure, and I noticed that while I had been talking the small boy had slipped quietly away.

In about two hours I returned and found a large number of men in the enclosure with some standing in the gateway. " What's up? " I thought. " I can't go past, I must go in." The men at the gateway only moved sufficiently to allow me to get inside, where I was met by an elderly man, better dressed than the others, who invited us to sit under an awning that had been spread, produced tea, and altogether was most polite. He asked me many questions through my sailor interpreter, but I understood a good deal of what they were saying, as I knew the dialect. I was, of course, anxious to know why all these men had turned out.

After a time our host moved nearer to my interpreter and asked him if I was a Frenchman. I did not give my man time to reply, but laughingly asked him if he really thought I looked like a Frenchman. The mystery was solved at last. I explained who I was, and told him that his people had not treated me properly; that when passing two hours before I had asked for a couple of cocoanuts which had been refused me. Those cocoanuts were produced in less time than it takes to tell this, and the men disappeared as if by magic.

Some time previously the Chinese authorities had handed over the harbour of Kwangchow-wan to the French, and had since had trouble with the natives, and these ignorant people had thought that I commanded a French gunboat. I learned later that when I passed through the city with my prismatic compass, it was stated that the box contained treasure with which I was negotiating the purchase of the province from the Tao-tai, who, poor chap, nearly lost his life over it.

On my way through the cocoanut plantation we passed two women; the younger one ran away, but as the other one was old she could not run; she remained where she was, sitting on a fallen tree. I walked up to her and asked her why her companion had run away.

She replied, " We do not know who you are," to which I said, " Surely you know that my vessel flies the Chinese flag? " But these people did not know what the Chinese flag looked like, and no wonder — for they had never seen one!

On another occasion when I visited Chunlan, an official called with a letter in his hand which he said he had just received from a town on the coast some miles to the northward, which was reported to have been attacked by pirates from the land and sea, and asked me to capture their junks then lying off the coast.

I told him that the Kai Pan was a Revenue cruiser and that police work was not in our line, but that if he would come with me I would do what he wanted. To this he replied that he had not the time to spare.

I told him, " I have no time to spare either." It was absolute bluff on his part. He wanted the Chunlan people to think that, as I commanded a Chinese gunboat, he therefore had authority over me.