We skirted the Quarantine Island on its seaward shore, then headed west for the estuary of Yangtze River. Philipson steered by the stars and checked his course roughly by a pocket compass, but he would have needed to be a pretty lubberly navigator to miss that enormous mark. Suddenly he looked up. 'Forgive me, Mirlees,' he said. 'The rush of events has caused me to forget my duties as host. Just go into the cabin and help yourself to a meal. Ah Sing will give you everything you want.' Now ravenously hungry, I didn't wait for a second invitation. The cabin of the launch I found to be a surprisingly roomy apartment, with a handy collapsible table amidships and broad lockers lining the sides. Ah Sing was evidently schooled to do more than run engines, for he had put up a capital collation of fresh cold meats and salad and white wine, laid out amongst spotless napery and dainty table furniture. In the roof of the cabin there was an electric globe which Ah Sing switched on after carefully shutting the after door, and I noticed mattresses and sheets and pillows rolled up on the ends of the lockers against bed-time. Altogether, this launch would have been a cosy home for a holiday, let alone a craft to run for your life in. I fell to, ate like a savage, then put on a pipe and went aft to relieve Philipson at the tiller. All night we sped up into that greatest of China's waterways, the three of us standing successive tricks of two hours each, and by daybreak we had pierced the estuary to a point where the shores-a green-brown line low down on either bow--began to be visible again. Mile after mile we flung behind us; more and more we seemed to be in a river rather than a sea. As the vast estuary narrowed, so all the divergent tracks of up-river traffic drew in together; now we passed within hail of an occasional steamer, and before long saw away to starboard the eternal procession of junks as they hugged the north shore to avoid the down-rolling volume of the stream. Philipson's knowledge of the river seemed to be exact to the last detail; many of the shore villages he named as we swept past were quite unknown to me, though I recognised the Treaty Port of Chinkiang on our starboard bow early in the afternoon, and wanted no telling when, at the fall of dusk, we drew near the end of our long stage.