This short story from 1923, by the traveller and natural historian Bassett Digby, is set on the banks of the Yangtze River. A boat has grounded on the riverbank, furiously churning the mud and turning the river into “whipped coffee”. But it is the locals arriving in their sampan boats that have caught the attention of a passenger on board. Mr Smith, a newly placed clerk in the region, watches the locals as they smack the water with their nets. “They’re not getting much luck!” he remarks as he watches them scoop a scrap of cabbage, a fish’s head, a cinder hardly bigger than a walnut into their nets, “there can’t be many fish on the surface”. “Fish? They’re not after fish,” the ship’s doctor quickly corrects him, “it’s a scavenging sampan. They are netting our refuse.” “Good Lord,” exclaimed Mr Smith, “what things some people will do for a living!” From the Chinese point of view, however, things look different.
The Mongolic had missed the tide. There was thick fog at the mouth of the Yangtze and Captain Kinneaird had lost his way. For two hours the liner had been stationary or steaming dead slow, while the passengers herded along the deck-rail, staring down into the swirling yellowness that looked more mud than water, and listening to the sing-song cry of the leadsman. Twice she grounded, a soft bump that set the engine-room bell clanging for full speed astern. A furious churning in her wake, that turned the river to whipped coffee. Then off she slid.
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