CRUISE IN AN OPIUM CLIPPER

Manawatu Standard, Volume LV, Issue 158, 4 June 1935, Page 8

CRUISE IN AN OPIUM CLIPPER

The publishers have done well to reprint Captain Lindsay Anderson’s narrative, “A Cruise in an Opium Clipper,” which was first published in 1891, the voyage itself having been made in 1859. It is a capital sea story, with likenesses to Marryat and a touch of the old Elizabethan enterprise in discovery 7, but refreshing, too, because of its utter ingenuousness and objectivity. The author, as third officer, joined this ship, the Eamont, in a run from Shanghai to Formosa, a trial cruise with a cargo of opium, the object being to open up a market in that then savage territory. The captain of the clipper was named, appropriately enough, Gulliver, and a resourceful sea-dog he proved to he. They made for the harbour of Taku, and found that entrance could only be effected by bumping over a reef. Once in, they 7 did a brisk trade, and were establishing peaceful relations with the inhabitants for future visits, when a typhoon came on, another ship drove on shore and was pillaged by wreckers, who murdered the captain and some of the crew. Reprisals followed, but at last, after hair-rais-ing escapes and adventures, and when a fleet of junks had been despatched against them and skilfully disposed of, they obtained satisfaction and swore a league of amity. It is a graphic story which grips the attention from the beginning.