One of these sticks is taken out when the chest leaves the
chop-boat, and the other when it reaches the deck of the vessel; and
as soon as one hundred chests are passed into the ship, the sticks
are counted and thus serve as tallies. Should the two bundles not
correspond, a chest is missing somewhere, and woe betide the blunderer!
In the busy season the chop-boats are seen pushing down the river with
every favorable tide. As for pushing against the tide, no Chinaman ever
thinks of such a thing, unless absolutely compelled, the value of time
being quite unknown in China. Coolly anchoring as soon as the tide is
adverse, the crew fall to playing cards until it is time to get under
way again. Nearly every chop-boat contains a whole family, father,
mother, and children,--sometimes an old grandparent, also, being
included in the domestic circle,--and all assist in working. At the
stern of the boat the wife has a little cooking-apparatus, and prepares
the cheap rice for the squad of eager gormandizers, who bolt it in huge
quantities without fear of indigestion. The family sit down to their
repast on the deck; the men keep an eye to windward and a hand on the
tiller; the mother knots the cord that goes around the baby's waist
into an iron ring, and, feeling secure against the bantling's falling
overboard, chats sociably, occasionally enforcing a mild reproof to a
vagabond son by a tap on the head with her chopstick.
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