ON the outbreak of the Great War there was a stampede of all the able-bodied foreigners to join up in their respective countries, but the friendly relations between us and our charming German friends — who felt the War badly — remained unchanged till the Lusitania was torpedoed.


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In 1916 my wife went home to do War work and was appointed, owing to her great knowledge of languages, to the Secret Service at the War Office, to edit a secret newspaper which contained information gathered from all countries and sources expressly for the purpose of keeping the Cabinet Ministers well informed. It was hard and difficult work.

During this period Shanghai felt very empty, but notwithstanding this fact and the interest taken in the War, races, dances and other gaieties went on; for it was argued that if these sports were stopped many Chinese would be thrown out of employment, and the impression given that our tails were down. Moreover, the Race Club — for instance — was able to contribute very large sums to War funds, from the proceeds of the racing, and an aeroplane, hospital beds, etc.

This reminds me of an occasion when the new Customs House at Hankow was under construction, complete with clock-tower. The Commissioner asked me how he could be sure of keeping the clock at the right time. Up till then the time had been taken either from vessels in port, or else from the sun at noon, by the Harbour Master, and then corrected to mean time, which is the time used in daily life. I told him to get a wireless set and take the Shanghai time signal, to which he replied, " What about the difference in time ? — i.e., the time taken for the signal to travel by air from Shanghai to Hankow (about 500 miles). To make certain of this I asked the Director of Ziccawei Observatory, who was the Meteorologist for North China. He told me that he frequently checked his time by the Lyons (France) signal, and he estimated that the signal probably took .02 of a second to reach him; so the Hankow Commissioner was informed accordingly.

One afternoon, while making a call on Mrs. Neild, our doctor's wife, she asked me to help her roll bandages.

I said to her, "Surely you have a machine for doing this work, as it takes such a long time by hand ? To which she replied, "Many men have told me that very same thing, and that they would devise a machine for me, but there it has ended." Next day I got hold of an old bicycle framework, had a spindle made and fitted these together in a wooden framework which formed a seat table. This enabled bandages to be rolled quickly by working the bicycle pedals with one's feet, while both hands were free to guide the bandage material (which lay in a basket beneath the table) on the spindle bar. I learned afterwards that similar machines were in use at home, but I did not know this at the time that I made mine for Mrs. Neild. She used it constantly.

In 1918 I was made Coast Inspector, as my chief had been given a high post at Peking under the Chinese Government. I must here note that Tyler had been wounded in the battle of Yalu in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894, when he served in the flagship which was under Admiral Ting (see "Pulling Strings in China," by W. F. Tyler), and had sustained injuries that made him deaf. So that his deafness and my poor sight debarred us both from War service. When the War was over and my wife had returned to Shanghai, there was occasion for double rejoicing: her return and my promotion, but I could not have served under a kinder or more considerate and brilliantly capable chief than Tyler.



In due course I was able to take my wife to see the beautiful surroundings of Hangchow City and the Hangchow Bore, which is a remarkable sight; also the Yangtze Gorges and the city of Chung King above them, which are over 1,300 miles from the sea. Peking, too, where we were most kindly entertained by the Inspector- General, Sir Francis Aglen, at whose mansion we stayed, and also by Mr. Konovaloff.

I learned while at Peking that a superannuation scheme was being introduced, which would provide the staff with a liberal pension, and that the time of compulsory retirement was when one had reached the age of sixty years. It was then the autumn of 1919, and as I had not been at home since my marriage in 1911, and was due to retire in 1924, I applied for and secured home leave in 1920.

We arrived at Hangchow by rail late one evening, and were met by a servant from our hotel who put us with our luggage into rickshaws. Off we went in single file through the narrow streets. In one place an open- air performance was in progress, surrounded by a great crowd. Being used to these things I thought nothing of it. We then came out on the shores of a great lake, and went along beside it for miles in the moonlight before we were at last deposited at the door of our hotel. It was not until afterwards that I learned how frightened my wife had been, wondering whether we were in the hands of bandits or not, as we seemed to be going miles to nowhere in the open country.

The beauties of the place made her forget all this, together with the amazing sight of the crest of the monster wave that formed the Hangchow Bore, when the water at the head of Hangchow Bay rises suddenly to a height of 20 to 30 feet. As a large number of people come to see the Bore when it is expected to be a large one, there is a well-built stone sea wall, and the ground is paved with large slabs of stone for a considerable distance back from the wall; and off the lower edge there is a stone shelf on which junks rest when bound up the river that runs into the head of the bay. They are protected from the force of the inrushing water by this elbow, and as soon as the crest of the Bore has passed them, they cast off and travel up-river at a great pace on the incoming tide.

Chung King, as I have already stated, is a large city situated at the head of the section of the river known as the Upper Yangtze Gorges, i.e., the third section of the Yangtze. There is, first, the Lower Yangtze, which extends to Hangkow, to which port large ocean steamers go at high river, and to which big river steamers ply from Shanghai all the year round.



Then there is the Middle Yangtze between Hankow and Ichang (which are both situated just below the first gorge), with the Siang River flowing into it, on which only the smaller-sized steamers ply, owing to the shallowness of the water in the channels, and the shifting nature of its sandy bottom.



The navigation of the Upper Yangtze River is most difficult on account of the enormous rise and fall of the river. In one gorge it rises as much as 180 feet. The river here rushes down a slope with a rocky bed, and the current in some of the rapids runs so swiftly that a steel wire hawser has to be secured above the rapid, while the steamer heaves herself up the rapid with her steam-winch as well as going full speed ahead with her engines, till she is over the steep tongue of the rapid. The scenery here is magnificent, the precipitous sides of the gorges towering over 1,000 feet above.

This region was infested with pirates; therefore, at night, when the steamers were forced to tie up, they were boomed off the rocks with spars for the double reason of protecting the hull of the vessel from touching the rocky shore, and also to prevent anyone from coming on board. You may well imagine how the steamers now in use put the junks and the trackers who pulled them up the river, out of employment. It sometimes took 100 trackers to pull one junk, inch by inch, over a rapid.

It was not until about 1898 that a British merchant, Mr. Archie Little, who was interested in the Upper Yangtze trade, took a steam-launch to Chung King, this being the first power vessel to travel up the turbulent waters rushing through these gorges. He foresaw great possibilities of a rich harvest by steamer owners if they could succeed, by negotiating the various rapids, in transporting the numerous passengers and thousands of tons of merchandise which had hitherto been carried on junks. These had to be tracked up through the gorges by man power, taking at least six weeks to get to Chung King from Tchang, a distance of some 300 miles; whereas a steamer would be able to do it in three days.

[click above] — excerpt of an old silent 16mm film ...

Having made the trip by steam-launch, Mr. Little formed a company and had a specially designed steamer built, named the Pioneer, which was taken to Chung King in the year 1900, under the command of Captain Plant, who had previously commanded a steamer plying on the Euphrates, in which river there are many rapids.

IN THE ICHANG GORGE on the Yangtze Kiang.
A stern-wheel steamer built for navigating in shallow and difficult waters. This gorge is not far from Ichang, 383 nautical miles from Hankow. Ichang was for long the limit of steam navigation from the sea. In 1934 the average draught of ships trading up to Ichang was between 7 feet and 10 feet. One of the most difficult and dangerous sections of the river is above Ichang up to Chungking.
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How it was that Captain Plant came to China and studied the Upper Yangtze rapids prior to being given command of the Pioneer I do not know.

The Pioneer only made one trip to Chung King, for, owing to the Boxer outbreak in 1900 and other reasons, it was sold to the British Naval authorities for river work. Another steamer of more suitable design was then built, which Captain Plant successfully navigated for some years, thereby convincing shipping firms that navigation through the rocky gorges was not dangerous for steamers properly designed and piloted. When sufficient steamers had been put on that section of the river to warrant the action, Captain Plant was made Upper Yangtze River Inspector, as it became necessary to have a qualified man to supervise the appointment and pilotage of steamers. The former junk pilots had to be trained to handle steamers. In due course, Captain Plant took home leave, having with him his wife and two Chinese girls whom she had adopted.

I saw them off at Shanghai; he seemed ill, but made nothing of it. He died of pneumonia on the way to Hong Kong and his wife died from heart failure the following day.

Steps were at once taken to provide a home for the two Chinese girls at Ichang, and also to decide on the nature of the memorial to perpetuate the valuable services Captain Plant had rendered both to shipping on the Upper Yangtze, and to travellers; for the trip to Chung King can now be taken in comfort on well- equipped steamers.

Information on this matter was collected by the British Consul at Ichang from all those interested in Upper Yangtze steam navigation.

If I remember rightly, Captain Plant died in 1921, and the following year the Ichang Consul called at my office and told me that he had learned that Captain Plant had supported his mother, who was now 82 years of age and was living at the house of one of her two sons.

At which I said, " We must hurry up a bit if we are to help her." Very soon the required machinery was set going and the old lady was enabled to decide, before her death, that the funds for her were to be invested for the future benefit of her grandchild.

It was eventually decided that the main memorial was to be a granite obelisk, 50 feet in height. The problem was where to erect it, for the Chinese said it would bring bad luck if placed in a prominent position, and therefore no site was procurable.

Luckily, Captain Plant had bought a piece of land high up on the river bank in the first gorge, on which he had built himself a bungalow. On learning that this bungalow had not yet been sold, the Plant Memorial Committee bought it, and after having demolished the building, had the obelisk erected on its site. Our thanks for this work goes to our Engineer-in-Chief.

The obelisk will be seen by all those who pass up and down the Yangtze Gorges for hundreds of years to come.

It is built of large blocks of hard granite, and is engraved on one side in Chinese characters and on the other in English.

There was a rather delicate matter to deal with in deciding in which direction the English wording on the obelisk should face, which I explain as follows.

In the first place, Captain Plant had been in the employ of the Chinese Maritime Customs Service, and a large number of Chinese had contributed generously to the memorial in his memory.

Therefore, as Captain Plant was a foreigner and came from outside China, the wording on the outer face of the obelisk should be in English and visible to all coming up the river from the sea; whereas the Chinese wording should be on the face seen from up- river as the Chinese people came from within China.

It is so placed that two of the four sides face the river diagonally. In this way all were satisfied.


To return to my narrative.

The City of Chung King is built on a rocky slope.

When my wife and I arrived we were met by the Commissioner. As I had official matters to discuss with him we went together in chairs to the Customs House, while my wife was taken in another chair through the Chinese city to the house of the Commissioner, Mr. Johnston, where she was greeted by his charming wife. Here again I quite forgot that my wife would feel uneasy at travelling alone through the narrow and crowded streets of the city; she admitted afterwards that she was terrified and the way (some two miles) had seemed endless.

Next day we crossed the river to spend our last night at Captain Plant's residence, before returning to Shanghai. His house was built high up on a rocky hillside, with steps leading down from it to where our steamer lay at anchor. We left the house next morning in sedan chairs and were taken in them along the narrow ziz-zag pathway in which were many hairpin bends, so that often the chairs we sat in overhung a deep precipitous ravine. I did not think anything of this, but noticing that my wife was not following, I got out of my chair and walked back to find her on foot, her hindmost bearer having slipped and fallen, which so startled her, she being on the brink of a precipice at the time, that she refused to continue in her chair. We walked the rest of the way to our steamer, to the amazement of our coolies, who had been chair- bearers all their lives, and could not see that there was anything to worry about.

My wife and I proceeded home across the Pacific to Victoria, and then across Canada. At Victoria my wife found very many invitations from her New York friends, asking her to stay with them; so she changed trains on the way to New York at Toronto and stayed with some of her friends there, and then paid 37 other visits in the U.S.A., while I went on to Montreal, and took the first steamer to England.

On arriving home I had to buy a house, as the one my mother had occupied since 1904 was to be sold; also it would not have been suitable for us all to live in after my retirement. I bought the house we now live in, which is also called " L'Incontro," and is in Penn Hill Avenue, Parkstone, Dorset, near Bournemouth.

After a few months in England my wife and I returned across Canada, visiting Banff and Lake Louise, two great beauty spots, en route. At Victoria my wife went to Santa Barbara, as her doctor had told her to spend a year there, so that her lungs might recover. While nursing during the War, before going to the War Office, she had contracted severe colds, which had affected her lungs, and she was in serious danger of contracting tuberculosis. So I went on to Shanghai by myself.

I do not remember anything of interest. I used to go to the French Club of an afternoon, and sit on the long shady verandah with hundreds of other people, watch tennis being played on the lawns, and listen to the splendid band, while chatting to my friends.

One hot afternoon in August while thus employed, one of the Club boys told me that I was wanted on the telephone. During the course of the previous day I had been watching the progress of a severe typhoon travelling across the China Sea towards Shanghai, the movements of which were being signalled on the semaphore by the Director of Ziccawei Observatory.

Typhoons, as most people know, are circular storms which travel bodily at varying speeds, while the velocity of wind within the storm is very great, often over 100 miles an hour.

Before I left the office I was relieved to find that the storm's path had changed to a north-easterly direction before it had reached the mouth of the Yangtze, and as we experienced no wind at Shanghai, I quite overlooked the fact that it was only the path of the centre of the storm that was recorded, and that the diameter of the storm was considerable. As I had received no reports of casualties the following day by the time I left the office, I had hoped that the aids to navigation marking the Yangtze had escaped. The channel to Shanghai is marked by several lightships and gas-lighted buoys.

The telephone call was from the pilot of a steamer that had just arrived in port, the first to arrive since the typhoon had passed; and his report was something of a shock to me, for he told me that two large light- ships were adrift from their moorings and that several lighted buoys had dragged out of position, while others had had their lights extinguished altogether.

As the captains of our four cruisers were all on the telephone, and all happened to be in port — one of them with steam ready at short notice — I was able, while standing at the telephone in the French Country Club, to instruct all four vessels to leave port, and also directed the man in charge of our yard to send the required temporary moorings for the lightships, which consisted of two one-ton mushroom anchors and heavy cable. By the following afternoon all the aids were reported to be functioning in their proper places. I had been very lucky in having all our vessels in port to attend to the matter. I was called up at the French Club, as my boy had told the pilot who had rung me up at home, that that was where he would be likely to find me.