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The fine level road traversing the plain passes through numerous towns and villages, and for the latter half of the distance skirts the shore. Old dismantled stone forts, tea-houses, eating-stalls, fishermen's huts, house-boats, and swarms of jinrikishas and pedestrians make their sea-shore road lively and interesting.
The rafts were very well, and the house-boats and the traders' boats, but the most majestic feature of the riverlife was the tow of coal-barges which, going or coming, the 'Avonek' met every few miles.
The only distinctions that are marked are between the homes of honest industry above the banks and the homes below them of the leisure, which it is hoped is not dishonest. But, honest or dishonest, it is there apparently to stay in the house-boats which line the shores by thousands, and repeat on Occidental terms in our new land the river-life of old and far Cathay.
A score or two of house-boats lay tied to the McKeesport shore or were bolstered high upon the beach; a fleet of Yough steamers had their noses to the wharf; a half-dozen fishermen were setting nets; and, high over all, with lofty spans of iron cobweb, several railway and wagon bridges spanned the gliding stream.
For this reason the Princetonians were indefatigable in their conversation with the niggers, for the electric lights of the Lulu illuminated the faces of our audience, which soon, in addition to the strolling craft of the river, numbered many canoes from the neighbouring house-boats, who were attracted by the gaiety and lights, thus forming a typical river audience, thoroughly mixed, seemingly on pleasure bent, good humoured, well behaved, polite, stolid, British.
In build these craft are like the house-boats of the Thames, and the custom of tricking them out with flowering plants suggests the scene at Henley during regatta week. Practically all the vice that a traveler learns of during a visit to Canton is confined to the flower boats, and their floral appellation comes from the reputed attractiveness of the sirens dwelling upon them.
It seemed better also to leave the gayety at its height: the river covered with soft colors, and the barges and house-boats by the brink, with their companies responsive in harmonies of muslin and gauze and lace to those afloat; the crowds on the opposite shore in constant movement, and in vivid agitation when the bell and the pistol announced a racing event.
Some are inhabited by Londoners in whom primeval instincts for air, space, sunshine, and liberty break out every summer from under the thick crust of modern habits and conventions and cause them to breathe, as we did, not angelical aspirations, but "I want to be a gypsy." Some of these house-boats are miracles of microscopic luxury, doll-like bedrooms and dining-rooms for pygmies.
"Give way, my men," said Mr Brooke, and the boat shot forward, while, relieved for the moment from the task of scanning the different boats, I sat gazing at the beautiful panorama of quaint houses, narrow streets debouching on the river, and the house-boats all along the edge of the river, while smaller boats were swinging here and there wherever there was room.
The beauty of the upper Thames with its fairy house-boats and green banks has been sung by poets, but rash is the minstrel who tunes his lyre to sound the praises of this muddy stream in the vicinity of Chelsea.
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