CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.
HOMEWARD BOUND.
"Bedad, sorr, it sames I'm dhramin', sure," observed Tim Rooney to Mr Mackay as the two now stood together on the forecastle, looking out over the hows.

"It's moighty loike the ould river; an' I'd a'most fancy I wor home ag'in, an' not in Chainee at all at all!" "You're not far wrong, bosun," replied Mr Mackay, smiling at his remark, or rather at the quaint way in which it was made.

"I can fancy the same thing myself, the appearance of the Yang-tse-kiang hereabouts being strangely like that of the Thames just below Greenhithe." I, overhearing their conversation, thought the same too; for, although, of course, there was no dome of Saint Paul's in the distance, nor forests of masts, nor crowds of steamers passing to and fro, nor all that bustle of business and din and dense black smoke from those innumerable funnels that distinguishes the waterway which forms the great heart artery of London, still there were many points of resemblance between the two--the show of shipping opposite Shanghai, where we lay, being almost as fair as that which is to be seen sometimes at the mouth of the Thames on a fine day, when it blows from the south and there are many wind-bound craft waiting to get down Channel.
The sampans and other native boats, darting about hither and thither in shoals, somewhat made up for the absence of the panting tugs and paddle steamers plying on the former stream, albeit there was no deficiency here either of Fulton's invention, steamers running regularly a distance of more than seven hundred miles up the Yang-tse-kiang; and, as for houses and the signs of a numerous population, there were plenty of these, although different to the bricks and mortar structures of our more accustomed eyes in England, with the peaks of pagodas doing duty for church spires, while the paddy fields planted with rice on either hand offered a very good imitation of the low-lying banks of our great mother river along the Essex shore.
"Aye, it's the very image, an' as loike as two pays," reiterated Tim Rooney on my joining the two.

"Don't ye think so, too, Misther Gray- ham ?" "I wish you would leave the `ham' out of my name!" I replied laughing, but a bit vexed all the same.

"I think you might by this time, it's getting quite a stale joke." "Faix, I dunno what ye manes, sorr," he replied, pretending to be puzzled, but the wink in his eye showing clearly that this density of his mental powers on the point was only assumed.