WHERES PIRATES STILL FLOURISH.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIII, Issue 4495, 22 November 1922, Page 2

WHERES PIRATES STILL FLOURISH.

Romance is not dead, even in modem China, that strange blend of East and West, old and new.

The real thing still exists 1 , and any day one is liable to be held up by pirates on the water and by brigands on land.

A. missionary was travelling by one o,f those filthy native ‘ passage-boats that swarm on the broad waterways, of the south.

By late atferhpon all was going well; that is to say, there had been no breakdown fpr several hours. Buti suddenly a shot rang out from a long, evil-looking boat that seemed to slip out from nowhere. Pirates 1 One sleek, prosperous-looking merchant from Canton immediately snatched up an old broom that .was lying about the deck. A very poor defence against Mauser pistols. Yes, but, having wrenched off the handle, he found .the socket a good hidingplace for a valuable diamond ring

Several more swarmed into the tiny, evil-smelling cabin which had been allotted to the “foreigner..” They begged him to take charge of their valuables.

Very soon there was a whole collection of watches and other valuables dangling from a corner rail, while on the outside olj the door a hastily scrawled notice was pinned up: "Don’t touch the Western man !” Within a few minutes it was all over. Resistance was useless, and. the visitors slipped away with their loot.

By this time darkness had descended, swift and silent. Sorrowfully thevictims got under way again and! made for the lights of home, howonly a few miles distant.

But alas ! the incredible happened —so much stranger is truth than Action—they were pirated again I Nothing was left this time; the steam launch was disabled, and the wretched passengers had to tear up planks to row themselves the last ifeWmiles.