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Updated: May 9, 2025
I think even in California they may make trouble, if they find me. So I go in sampan. Sometimes Japanese cross to California in sampan." "That's right," said Rainey. He had handled more than one story of Japanese crews landing on some desolate portion of the coast to avoid immigration laws and steamer fares. Generally they were rounded up after their perilous, daring crossing of the Pacific.
When we have reached our destination he says "Goodnight," just touches Chrysantheme's hand, and descending once more by the slope which leads to the quays and the shipping, he crosses the roadstead in a sampan, to get on board the 'Triomphante.
Yes, it was destined from the first to be a wet journey. Yet it will still be possible to breathe; and not so bad as solid water on all sides, where, after a grim struggle, one lies at rest, neither caring nor remembering Captain Wilbur, listen to me. We go from this office to my sampan, which lies moored at the bulkhead not far away. During the walk, you will precede us.
The gentlemen with the mediaeval weapons accompany us to the river and keep the crowd from pressing too closely upon us until I and the yameni-runners board a Ki shway sampan that is to convey me to the next down-stream city.
She went out a few yards, waited, and dove quietly under a three-footer, bobbing up on the other side. The locals live in the water, Joe thought, they don't fight it. He remembered a story in The Advertiser about a sampan that sank in the Pacific. A fisherman, rescued twenty-four hours later, was asked by a reporter, "What did you do all that time out there with no life jacket?"
The dream of it is still upon me and I wish I could share it with you. We went over in a sampan, a rude open boat rowed by two men in undress uniform. For half an hour we literally danced across the sea; everything was fresh and sparkling, and I was so glad to be alive and free, that I just sang for joy. Miss Leasing joined in and the boatmen kept time, smiling and nodding their approval.
Ah Sum, being but an inconsequential wage-worker, at once assumes the onerous duties of towman; Yung Po, husband, father, and sole proprietor of the sampan, manipulates the rudder, which is in front, and occasionally assists Ah Sum by poling. The boat-wife stands at the stern and regulates the length of the tow-line; the baby puts in the first few hours in wondering contemplation of myself.
"Tell them we will go ahead, Achang, and all they need to do is to make fast their rattans to the sampan," said Captain Scott, when he had taken in the situation. In reply to the message the Bornean delivered to them, the Malays nodded their heads vigorously, and smiled their assent. "Go ahead, down the river, Clinch," added the captain to the helmsman.
That was the time for which the Malays in the sampan had been waiting, and one of them glided over the side like a short thick snake, reached the shore, and then making his way up stream for some little distance, he softly plunged in, with nothing but a kris in his lingouti, or string round the waist used by the natives to support their loin cloths, and after swimming boldly out for some distance, turned over, and floated with just his nose above the water.
Sometimes they would take their dinner and row out in a little sampan to the rocks outside the harbor and there, undisturbed, they would study the whole day long. They always began the day's work with a prayer and a hymn of praise, and no matter what subjects they might study, most of the time was spent on the greatest of books.
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