[Sidenote: Mar. 29.] We had gone but a short distance after daylight when we suddenly came into shoal water. The vessel was quickly stopped and her head put at another point without success. This operation was repeated four times, each attempt a little farther towards mid-channel. Whether the commander was losing patience, and made the last more spitefully than before, he certainly managed to fix her as firmly as on a rock on a sandbank about mid-channel. Every attempt to heave her off after lightening failed; but the _Opossum_ had orders not to proceed farther than where there was a channel for us, and she must be some way ahead. A sandbank soon formed on the side opposite to the current, on which the men walked; but this, our experienced American pilot assured us, was a matter of course, on grounding on a sandbank in a river with a rapid current. The _Faust_ was got ready and preparing for a start to Shi-show for junks, by which we might lighten ourselves, when the outline of three Europeans, with the sky for a background, appeared on the edge of the bank which formed our mud wall. They were from the _Opossum_, having heard from a native boat of our position. On consultation, it was decided that our case was merely one that required patience: the current would take its time, and eventually release us; we might be twisted about and fresh banks appear, but in the end we should be floated off, and none the worse. [Sidenote: Mar. 30.] Shooting parties landed, bringing on board a tolerable bag: ducks and teal had not yet taken their departure for their summer abode; several pheasants, hares, and snipe. We supplied _Opossum_ with what coal she could stow, while her native pilot held out hopes of taking us up to I-Chang. [Sidenote: Mar. 31.] Shortly before 4 A.M., the rush of the stream chain through the hawse-hole, and a tremulous motion, informed me that we were off the bank, while the other bower anchor brought us up in the channel. It took us the remainder of the day to recover our anchors, stream chain, and hawsers. On the Sabbath afternoon I invited Risk, my secretary, to accompany me in a stroll. My feelings were shocked to see him, on landing, produce a gun and well-stocked bag of cartridges, while Ponto, a pointer, but a still better retriever, soon came on the scent of game. Snipe and teal got up in twos and threes, a fair proportion falling to Risk’s gun. The temptation was too much for me. Borrowing the gun, while Risk looked on, in the course of a few moments I returned him an empty cartridge bag. Fortunately he had a few cartridges left, and was rewarded by a brace or two of pheasants on the homeward journey. The spring snipe afford splendid shooting, even up to May, as they work north to their breeding grounds by easy stages. The birds are nearly double the ordinary size, the result, I presume, of good feeding in the pâdi-fields. Bags of even fifty couple a gun await a good shot. CHAPTER XCVIII YANG-TSE-KIANG TRIP