Weighing on 14th, by a little after 11 o’clock we came up with one of the most picturesque objects on the river, a rock rising abruptly, called the “Little Orphan”; but the day was dull and a mist hung over the adjacent country: the right thing would have been to ascend a small pagoda on the top and enjoy a splendid view. Shortly afterwards we saw the Orphan Rock in the entrance of the Poyang Lake, standing in bold relief, the guardian of the passage. On the left of the entrance is Hu-kau, a temple within a high picturesque wall, where resides a Chinese Admiral with his war junks. The legend of the Orphan Rock, told us by the pilot, is, that in bygone ages a Chinaman, with his wife and two children, was crossing the river, when his boat was upset in a storm. The parents at once sank, but a kind turtle rising to the surface, took the children on his back, and instead of making for the shore, appears to have swum up stream, when after a while one of the children slipped off and was drowned, when there arose the rock now called “The Little Orphan.” The turtle then made for the Poyang Lake with his second charge, but before he reached the shoal the other child fell off at the spot where the rock rose out of the water called “The Great Orphan.” The benevolent turtle then died too, and his broken heart formed a huge rock not far from the resting-place of the lost child. [Sidenote: Sunday.] We anchored off Chin-kiang as the bell was tolling for afternoon service. Our appearance had caused the clergyman to delay the service twenty minutes, but as we were not informed, his kind intention was lost on us. This was one of the open ports selected on the river. Like most of the towns on the southern bank of the Yang-tse, it had been in the hands of the rebels, the effects of whose ravages were apparent. It is a neat little settlement, with European-looking houses, a Bund in front, and the handsome range of Lien-Shan mountains for a background. The merchants here had long been aware of the advantages to trade that would accrue by the opening of a port or ports on the Poyang Lakes, with permission to ply steamers either as traders or tugs. As yet the Chinese authorities, blind to their advantage, have been opposed to the use of steam in the inner waters. [Sidenote: Mar. 15.] With the assistance of the _Faust_, a small steamboat of about forty tons, kindly lent us by Jardine Mathieson’s firm at Shanghai, it was my intention to have explored this lake, and I determined to wait her arrival. She was to have followed us in tow of one of the American steamers that run between Hankow and Shanghai. This proposed expedition caused no small sensation in the settlement. Those who could not get stowed away on board the _Salamis_, got ready their house-boats; two started for the scene of action at once, as they knew their craft were of too frail a construction to stand a tug of a greater rate than three knots per hour.