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The craft approached us, I jumped into it, then through a little trap-door shaped like a rat-trap that one of the scullers threw open for me, I slipped in and stretched myself at full length on a mat in what is called the "cabin" of a sampan. There was just room enough for my body to lie in this floating coffin, which was scrupulously clean, white with the whiteness of new deal boards.
Early as it was, there were plenty of scullers going here and there that morning, and plenty of barges dropping down with the tide; the navigation of the river between bridges, in an open boat, was a much easier and commoner matter in those days than it is in these; and we went ahead among many skiffs and wherries briskly.
Our crew consists of two scullers an old man at the stem, wearing only a rokushaku about his loins, and an old woman at the bow, fully robed and wearing an immense straw hat shaped like a mushroom. Both of course stand to their work and it would be hard to say which is the stronger or more skilful sculler.
These animals often sat still overhead and stared down at us in the most contemptuous and indifferent manner, and they looked so human and yet so comical with their enormous red noses that I found myself laughing aloud, our scullers doing the same, till the monkeys actually grinned with indignation.
The craft approached us, I jumped into it, then through a little trap-door shaped like a rat-trap that one of the scullers threw open for me, I slipped in and stretched myself at full length on a mat in what is called the "cabin" of a sampan. There was just room enough for my body to lie in this floating coffin, which was scrupulously clean, white with the whiteness of new deal boards.
Dunton proceeds: 'Printing was now the uppermost in my thoughts, and hackney authors began to ply me with specimens as earnestly and with as much passion and concern as the watermen do passengers with Oars and Scullers.
And, it being then perfectly calm, he proposed that, if they would accommodate him with a pair of scullers, he could get within reach of the boat, at least near enough to make signals to her; and he preferred any risque to the certain fate of being a prisoner.
The craft approached us, I jumped into it, then through a little trap-door shaped like a rat-trap that one of the scullers threw open for me, I slipped in and stretched myself at full length on a mat in what is called the "cabin" of a sampan. There was just room enough for my body to lie in this floating coffin, which was scrupulously clean, white with the whiteness of new deal boards.
So the river life flows by; skiffs, and four oars, canoes, solitary scullers in outriggers, once now and then a swift eight, launches, a bargee in a tublike dingey standing up and pushing his sculls instead of pulling; gentlemen, with their shoulders in a halter, hauling like horses and towing fair freights against the current; and punts poled across to shady nooks.
Why, we could, if we pleased, lie by and pass two or three decades as jolly cricketers and scullers, and resume the race for wealth with the rest of mankind, hardly sensible of the holiday in our pockets though we were the last people to do it, we were the sole people that had the option.
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