the Suez Canal. The sleepy Celestial seasons had gone flowering their
way to paradise, and the opium-smuggler and her sycee silver lay safe
and swallowed in ribs and jowl of quicksand. Our American proposed to
have it up by the locks. Two things said Nay--the coral insect, which
was using it in its architectural designs, and the hungry quicksand.
Worst of all, the American could not find it. They hid the bulky
vessel in hills of sand, and after two months' labor in submarine
armor the speculator was beaten. "Get a coolie," said a resident China
merchant, and he did.

Every seaport city of China is a twin. It is two cities--one inland,
narrow-streeted, paved with rubble stones; the other at sea, floating
on bamboo reeds. The amphibious inmates of the marine town never
go ashore, but are a species of otter or seal. Besides, they are
first-class thieves, as well as cowardly, cruel pirates and wreckers.
They will steal the sheathing from a copper-bottomed vessel in broad
daylight, and at night a guard-boat is necessary for protection. They
will defy a sentry on shipboard--steal his ship from under him while
he is wondering what he is set to guard. They are all expert divers,
as familiar with the sea-bottom as with their own ugly little hovels.
Such a native was found, and for a dollar spotted the submerged vessel
in her matrix of sand and coral.

"Now set a guard-boat," said the Englishman, "or he will steal the
line, to get another dollar for finding the smuggler again."

But the want of experts defeated the plan, after all. It was necessary
to use a petard to lay bare the treasure, and no one had the necessary
skill. When the American consented to lost time and defeat the cyclone
threw another spoil in his way. The East like the West Indies is the