In rig they are semi-Chinese, the shape of the sail being that of the ordinary balanced lug, which bamboo reefing battens with a sheet-line leading from the extremity of each to the main-sheet render extremely handy and safe. A jib can also be set, but as it destroys the simplicity of the rig it is greatly disliked by the crew and therefore seldom utilised. The particular craft which I have now in mind is an excellent sea-boat, fast and comfortable, has a fine cabin with four berths, tables folding on either side of the centre-board well, and capable of seating a dozen, stove, gun-racks, glass and bottle brackets and numerous lockers. There is also a bathroom and lavatory, a kitchen with good cooking range, quarters forrard for the crew--which consists of the lowdah and four sailors, together with cook, boy and dog-coolie--while on deck are the water-tanks, kennels, and a small sampan by way of a jolly. Replete with every comfort, a shooting-box for the sportsman and a sure refuge for the overworked, the house-boat represents to me the acme of leisure and repose. "And the night shall be fill'd with music, And the cares that infest the day Shall fold their tents like the Arabs, And as silently steal away." CHAPTER VI JAMBOREES It is nearing twenty years ago since I celebrated my last bump supper in my old college at Cambridge, but the remembrance of it is so bright and cheering in the monotony of daily life that time is much abridged, and it seems but yesterday that the two pailfuls of smoking milk punch worked such deadly havoc amongst four crews of well-trained men that ultimately they were mostly laid out in a row, with consequent sore heads and interviews with the dean next morning. A bump supper is an orgy never to be forgotten. A jamboree is a very analogous function. Where and what the word comes from I do not know, but its meaning in the Far East is universally understood to be a bachelor entertainment consisting of an enormous dinner with plenty of wine, tales, songs and general hilarity, occasionally verging on riotousness with breakage of household furniture and other effects. As I glance back over the past fifteen years such wild nights stand out like beacons in pleasing relief from the many respectable gatherings, be it in Church or Society, at which I have had the honour of assisting, but which have left no impressions sufficiently vivid to class them with treasured souvenirs or even provoke a smile. Some years since there visited Hankow a personage of exalted rank, who, being a near kinsman of one of the most powerful of Europe's present rulers, was received with patriotic enthusiasm by the large colony of his nationals domiciled there, and with every mark of respect by all other members of the cosmopolitan community.