Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-04-07

eighteenth night of the second moon (Chi-
nese calendar and on the eighteenth
nights Of the eighth and ninth moons.
Then the flood tides of the Pacific surge
into the funnel mouth of Hang Chau bay,
rage against the construction and finally
race headlong over the bars and flats into
the Using Sang, piling up in solid wall
that is sometimes fifteen feet high and has
been known to roll along with front al
most twenty feet above the level Of the
beaten river.
Ten and thirteen miles an hour are the
recorded speeds at which this monstrous
thing travels up the stream.
For an hour before 1t can be seen in the
moonlight the ears of the watchers on shore
hear Its shouting as 1t thrusts it's way up
stream. 1t is as if all the world were going
to be engulfed-as If the whole boundless
Pacific were breaking into the old empire
Of China to bury it forever.
AT Haining the bells of the temple begin
to ttnkle, the horns bray forth and the
delivish gongs clamor. The hundred priests
shoot Off fireworks along the bank to ap
coolies and sailors scream and pray Be
fore the bronze cows set along shore In
worship of the river Thing, there rise
clouds OF incense.
The Bore Comes.
In the middle OF the river lie the junks,
high and dry a mighty shelf of rock
Tended by long rows of double piling and
granite boulders. This shelf has been built
as a refuge from the bore. 1t lies few
feet deeper than the highest level of the
river at dead high water and when the
bore Is due, all the junks drop down to 1t
and wait there till the falling tide let's them
sit on 1t. When the tide has ebbed still
more. they are high and dry, many feet
above the river bed. II a junk fails to
reach the platform before the tide leaves
the shelf dry, its fate is. decided. Nothing
that floats can Withstand that which is to
come
At last the roaring that has been grow
ing steadily has risen so that 1t browns
out all the noises of man: and afar in the
white moonlight is something that is whittier
still. 1t Is the sea, coming bodily, tossing
as If it were being spat up by gigantic lips
from the deepest abyss The swift brown
river is running as swiftly as ever toward
the sea. The great bore, running the other
way, rolls on and over it as If the deep
Tsien Sang were not there at all.
In two hours the Great White Thing has
swept twenty-three miles.
Hardly has the crested wonder passed be-
fore there comes comedy Riding on the
that have been waiting outside of the river
mouth for 1t to run its race. The current
bears them along too swiftly to give them
a chance to steer. They drive into the river
stern first and sideways and not a few spin
around and around soiemnly in circles. SO
they drive along till they get a chance to
beat across the tide and tie up ashore.
The vast power of this Chinese bore may
he estimated from the fact that In 1910
during the opium war, the British transport
Kite was turned over at the mouth or tne
river like a shot and later the warship
PElegethon was literally siung along by II
for miles up the river.
The Chinese have very simple and con-
vincing theory to account for the bore
much more easily understood than the COM
plex theory of the white scientists. Ac-
cording to absolute Chinese knowledge,
person named Prince TsZe Su once offended
the sovereign Flu Cha. The party OF the
ri 10 nf
part a sword, and Prince TsZe Su took the
hint like a perfect gentleman and put the
sword where it would do him the most
harm. AS soon as he had successfully
translated himself into corpse, MIR. Fu
Chas hirelings threw him into the Tsien
Sang as per orders duly received, Prince
TSZe made no objections at the time, but
that night the bore arrived for the first
time on record and one of those old per-
sons who remember things Immediately af-
ter are reminded Of them, remembered at
once that the late Tsze had promised be-
fore he became late that he would come
back on the tide to watch the fall and ruin
of the selfish Flu Cha. .
Is something that puzzles the lay white
mind, for the disaster happened to the
prince with the sneezy name about hve CEN
turtles before Christ, and 1t may fairly be
assumed that Flu Cha is dead and gone by
this time.
Terrible Oceanic Currents.
Far more dangerous and terrible than any
OF the bores of tidal rivers are the oceanic
tidal currents Of such places as Seymour
narrows discovery passage). of British
Columbia and the dreaded Peril strait In
the Sergius narrows, off Alaska. At their
highest in the time of the full moons, these
currents are too strong for any steam YES
sci excepting perhaps twin-screw giant,
and even a ship Ike the Campania or the
Deutschland would find itself hard beset
were Il 70 venture into the worst of the
tide-rips at the time OF full tide.
AT spring tides the current in Discovery
passage attaius a velocity of twelve miles
an hour, and when the wind Is with 1t, 1t
races along even faster than the majority
of steamships that ply those seas When
il Is setting most strongly to the south it's
violence is such that II actually overruns
itself and forms true waterfalls in the
very middle of the open sea channels.
Vast swirls form everywhere Then, when
the current turns north, the overfalls and
swirls turn with 1t and when the tide has
reached its fullest velocity the waters north
OF Ripple Rock become so wild that II is
as IL huge kettle many miles in circura-
ference were boiling It's hardest.
1t is then that whirlpoois are formed that
are big enough to eugulf a small vessel
Great trees with their roots and branches
attached are often seen pluIgfng, twisting
spinning and turning end FOR end as they
tear along in the white froth til finally they
dive and disappear.
No ship may dare this passage when that
tide IS running full. Vessels must wait tiil
the slack water comes. and even then they
are measurably safe only IL they enter so
that favorable current will be with them
through the course.
In Peril strait the tidal current runs from
ten TO twelve miles an hour In its narrowest
and worst part. and then It Is not safe for
any ship, no matter how large and power
fl, to essay the passage. The water heaves
itself up bodily over the lodges IN the mild
die Of the channel, running like rapids and
''sixzing and swirling sayaeely wherever
theEs 10 the least obstruction to its crazy