OWARDS the end of November the devout lover of houseboats, his appetite keenly whetted with brief excursions into the nearer hunting~grounds, sets about him to devise ways and means for a cruise of two or three weeks. The matter is by no means simple: first, there is the question of leave, the pacifying of taipans and the goodwill of Penelope, left to face her household cares alone at a time when these are not of the lightest. With M'Nab, for instance, it is an everrecurring grievance that the best of the shooting comes precisely at that season when his olive branches naturally expect him to play a central part in the preparations for Christmas, and the ingenuity with which he compromises with Mrs. M'Nab and his conscience does equal credit to his heart and head. With the Major, untrammelled by domesticity, and enjoying large opportunities of furlough, the question is simple; all he needs is to find two or three congenial souls and to agree upon the route. So also with Thurlsby-whose gentlemanly calling insists that litigation shall cease while he rests at the appointed seasons. On these two I can therefore generally reckon. For myself, it has happily been established and recognised that these three weeks devoted to the pursuit of health are absolutely necessary to restore the ravages of protracted brain-work, and the matter has long since passed beyond the regions of official or domestic discussion. I believe my wife has told Mrs. Wilden that I always come back from these trips vastly improved in temper and cheerfulness, and she went so far as to suggest that this might be equally beneficial to Mr. Wilden. As Wilden is notoriously restrained from junketings and jaunts by a velvet hand in an iron glove, I don't suppose the suggestion did much good. Anyhow, when the Major and I invited him to join us last year, he agreed readily enough, and two days later cried ofF on the plea of pidgin. I told him to promise Mrs. Wilden that we would be back the day before Christmas, and advised seasonable largesse in advance-but to no purpose. It was against him, no doubt, that the year before he had spent Christmas day somewhere up the Pen-y6 creek with a jovial crowd instead of in the bosom of his family, and his story about being stopped by a block of rafts had failed to bring him absolution.
For nearly a month Thurlsby, the Major, and I had talked over the coming trip, casting about for an eligible fourth and discussing our destination. In this way one can get a good deal out of a trip long before it begins. With a map of the country, a tin of Craven mixture, and liquid refreshment d discrition, I know of few pleasanter ways of spending an evening Whole worlds of hope lie before you, the joys of anticipation keener than those of memory are yours; while, at the touch of imagination, the unknown lands ahead grow rose-coloured and alluring.
First of all there is the choice of the shooting-ground next, the plan of campaign, which includes division of duties, commissariat, and equipment. To any one who knows anything of houseboats and the idiosyncrasies of those who travel in them, I need hardly say that in these topics alone lies matter for endless argument between habituds and friends-argument profitable and pleasing enough as a pastime, but futile in the matter of any definite conclusion. We certainly had come to none, after four specially-devised symposia, not to mention much desultory talk at street corners and in the Club bar.
Take, for instance. the choice of ground. Thurlsby, with the solemn manner which he brings to bear on questions wherein opinions may differ even when they involve no points of law, would spread the map out before him and invite our serious attention. Now Thurlsby has one or two special weaknesses up country. One is, that if ever he has found decent shooting-it may have been ten years ago -in any spot he wants to go back there regardless of the fact that game has its migrations, and that to give a place a good name is enough, in these days, to clean it out. Then, too, he is partial to his creature comforts - his wellappointed cabin and the enamelled bath with hot and cold water laid on-and deprecates exchanging the Heart's Desire for the uncertainties of any native craft. All of which means that. keen sportsman though he be, Thurlsby's choice of a hunting-ground is apt to be limited by these faiblesses. As for Jim, his Celtic temperament inclines him to listen eagerly to every man's Munchausen tales, and his views vary therefore with perplexing rapidity. On two points only is he definite-two things he wants-a rubber of " bridge " after dinner and a reasonable prospect of bamboo partridge; these things granted, he amicably accepts all other conclusions. As for me. I confess to a disposition for pastures new, and especially for hill country. I long for the broken sky-line, mountain sides purple at dusk, sunlight and shadow, and the song of murmuring waters in the glens; I want a change from the mud-flat land of Klangsu, with its everlasting paddy fields and creeks, its kitchen-garden cultivation. its interminable vista of graves and sheltered hamlets, each an exact reproduction of all the others. So that, when it comes to the grand sortie, I vote stoutly for the hill country of Chekiang.
It was a week before the start. and we had found neither the fourth man nor our marching route, when a god came to us from a machine, a globe-trotter from the P. and O.-Lambton to wit, who gravitated to our party as naturally as woman to a mirror. He seemed to come to us out of space, heaven-sent, unto this appointed end, one of those earthwandering Esaus that only the Anglo-Saxon race produces, and in twenty-four hours he was running the whole business with the indisputable authority of an old campaigner. He had just come from tiger-shooting in Siam, and was on his way to look for Reeves' and golden pheasants in the upper Yangtsze-but he took in our picnic as epicures take an olive between champagne and claret. That he had never shot bamboo partridge was reason enough for joining us.
He had brought a letter of introduction to Jimfrom a brother-warrior in the Straits, which told of great shikar with seladang, and asked jimto put him on to something good. So Jim, after a discreet and satisfactory inquiry about bridge, put him on to us. In five minutes the party was complete. We dined together that night, the map was produced with the smokes, and in half an hour our plans were settled. Thurlsby was eloquent in praise of Huchow and the Melchee country, Jimtold us stories of big bags that had just come down from a party at Chinklang, and rumours of some marvellous great deer in the hills near Tatung-but Lambton, looking at the map with an unbiassed eye, pronounced for the Chientang river. Were there not deer and pig in the hills, wild-fowl and geese on the broad stream, pheasant and partridge in the valleys? I had some photographs of the upper reaches, and these, combined with Lambton's opinion, converted the K.C. before we got to our second whisky. To-morrow, with the Heart's Desire looming up reproachfully on his mental horizon, he would, no doubt, have misgivings; but to-night, as we discussed the hiring of boats, and many devices therein for dogs and men, he became enthusiastic. So the start was fixed; Jim, by reason of his bachelor state, having the freedom of his cook, was appointed commissariat officer; Thurlsby agreed to supply and equip eight picked beaters, and to arrange for boats and towage to Hangchow; Lambton, having time to spare, was to look after the liquor supply, ammunition, and general requisites; while I, boasting the acquaintance of a junk company's manager on the Chientang, undertook to enLyaLye the riverboats, and arrange for porterage from the Grand Canal through Hangchow city to the river.
So the plan of campaign was laid, and, as we four stolid Britons sat yarning over the map, Jim's unromantic diningroom was filled with the sorcery of the silent places of which we spoke, the sights and sounds of the great outdoor world. Stirred into mysterious life at the sight of a few familiar names, red lines and blue blotches on a clumsy map, the magic alchemy of memory summoned within those four walls a thousand echoes from the past-ours were the keen unsullied air of hills that guide blue waters to the sea, shimmer of morning sunlight on fields bejewelled with gossamer; shouts of beaters in the copses, where fir and bamboo gather to harmonious shades; heavy scent of bracken, where pheasants lie close at mid-day,-a scent which for me always brings a swift message of autumntinted English cliffs, and a boy ferreting gleefully., amidst the tall ferns, for ever and ever. Ours were joys of prowess in bygone days-not diminished by lapse of time-chances and strange happenings of the chase, with many opinions and inventions. Some of Thurlsby's stories we knew of old, but Lambton had not heard them, and there is an etiquette of restraint on such occasions which we observed. So we wandered in fancy over the land, the blithe call of the wild in our ears,' slaying once more the ghostly birds and beasts of past sorties with much content. That Lambton had stories to tell we knew, but to-night he was sternly practical-note-book in hand he insisted on solid information and cold facts leading us firmly but gently from our hills of fancy to the Chientang river. So Jim and I got out the log-book of a trip two years ago-a trip where the bag of geese had been so heavy that we ceased from pursuing them-and he took down the dates and figures as stolidly as a broker takes quotations. Then he inquired tenderly after our tastes and habits in the matter of drink, recording them carefully and without that criticism which the matter invited. Finally, he noted our various suggestions as to general impedimenta, of the things each man should bring and those to be bought or hired. Between Thurlsby's boudoir apartment and Jim's barrack-room notions he struck a happy medium, adding some sensible ideas from his own stock, so that under his masterful hand order and precision gradually took form and substance out of chaos. The man was a Kitchener, wasted by accident of birth and patrimonya specimen of the resourceful practical type of Briton that finds and founds our Colonies. or wanders into the uttermost places of the earth-men usually lost to service of the Empire by reason of the stereotyped futility of our military and political systems.
Jimhad got some patent barrack gear from the stores in the autumn, dodgy, collapsible devices of strange forms; things that posed as card-tables and arm-chairs by day, and promised to become washstands or beds by night; also a rubber bath that folded itself into a cardboard case no bigger than a map. They were all Wolseley's, or French's, or Buller's., and Jim was certain that they were just the thing for boat furniture. Also he had a field tent-two men's load-which was sure to come in handy somehow. Lambton wasn't enthusiastic about these triumphs of military ingenuity, and I noticed that his list of gear included things that implied want of faith, but he said the tent would be very useful as an overall for the boat in case of bad weather; for the rest, he thought you could knock up nearly all the necessary fittings of a boat with a few planks and some rope. Jim smiled in a tired sort of way, and said we'd be very grateful for his gear before the trip was over. Thurlsby, impartial and superior, merely observed that he would bring his own camp-bed, and could sit on it in case of need; and suggested a couple of tin bath-trunks as convenient things for carrying dog biscuits.
Last came the official list of dogs, and Lambton must have had some doubts as to the prospects of the chase if he believed all the things we said about our own and each other's kennels. The K.C. believes in Shuster, his thick-set German pointer, as he does in Magna Charta, and when Jim began by asking him if he was going to bring his sausagedog, there was a brief and brilliant exchange of courtesies.
Lambton, upon our better acquaintance, showed me the entry in his note-book recording his impressions of the dog inventory, as freely stated. It read thus:-
Mr. Thurlsby's "Shuster"-German pointer-steady workerrequires to be carried home in a basket.
Same owner's " Di "-setter-good at quail, but prefers working covert with the beaters.
The Major's "Peter "-spaniel-fat and wheezy-alleged cure of recent attack of mange not generally credited.
Same owner's " Damit "-Irish setter-generally works out of range-keen on domestic poultry.
Same owner's "Pat "-Irish retriever-addicted to fightinggood at water and does not eat wild-fowl.
Mr. Phil Marsden's " Rocket "-half-breed pointer-suffers from dysentery-partially deaf, but generally finds his own way to the boat.
Same owner's " Nelly "-pointer-good on partridge, but prefers retrieving sticks or stones.
Same owner's " Rex "-spaniel-fast and independent in covertwhen following deer or hare generally lost for some hours.
" You fellows need all your own dogs," he said, " and I'd rather riot borrow any of them. But if you know of any one who's got a couple of decent animals that I could beg or hire, just a spare beast or two in case of accidents,, I'd go round and have a look at them."
Jim knew several - two that belonged to a police inspector, and Wilden's brace of spaniels-all very useful. Then there was Willoughby's retriever, not half a bad dog when you got into his ways.
" Isn't that the dog Willoughby lent to Major Appleton last year," asked the K.C., " the one he sent back by river steamer from Wuhu without apologies or thaiiks? "
" AY, that's the dog. But Willoughby had forgotten to mention his little peculiarities. He was a very good dog in some ways, but he had an irresistible penchant for tame ducks. so that Willoughby generally had to lead him on a chain through villages in the creek country. Ignorance of this fact cost Appleton four dollars and a good deal of trouble on the very first morning, for old Bos-that was his name-got into a large flock, and brought in six before they collared him. Then., too., he was a good retriever, but as jealous as a woman, and would fight any other dog that tried to bring in a bird anywhere near him. Appleton said he hadn't come up country to go off by himself every day, so the end of it was that the poor beast was shipped back in disgrace. All the same, as dogs go, I've seen worse."
Bos isn't in the picture," said Lambton. "I wouldn't mind the duck mania so much, but a fighter isn't curable in one trip. Never mind, I think we shall do with the lot we've got, and if not we can beat up another couple by advertising."
So, after solemnly drinking success to the trip, we made our way homewards through silent streets, infinitely superior to their material world of go-downs and sordid trades. Before us lay the wide prospect of the Chientang river, its snow-tipped hills and pleasant valleys. We could afford to be sorry for these pitiful city-dwellers, and to wish for them a better measure of wisdom.

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