Re: Hundredth Port (was: Missee Lee (AR Books in shops)


[ Follow Ups ] [ Post Followup ] [ Previous # Next ] [ Start New Thread ] [ TarBoard ]

Posted by Andrew Craig-Bennett on November 03, 2006 at 16:02:03 from 81.144.214.226 user ACB.

In Reply to: Re: Hundredth Port (was: Missee Lee (AR Books in shops) posted by Andrew Craig-Bennett on November 03, 2006 at 12:08:43:

Finally, a chance to show off some obscure knowledge on Tarboard!

I re-read the opening chapter.

There are problems with Manila (it has limited wharf space, and is mainly an anchorage port served by lighters, like the old Pool of London, or New Orleans), but we can certainly eliminate San Fernando.

San Fernando does have a lighthouse, on San Fernando Point, but that is about it.

Not only is the place far too small to accomodate three merchant ships at one time, but it has never had a dredger or a pile driver.Far from being noisy, it is downright sleepy. Worse, the entrance is narrow, rock strewn and marked by unlit buoys. Captain Flint would never have considered sailing from there at night in the "Wild Cat".

Sorry, but it has to be Manila. Running the engine till abeam of the lighthouse would make sense as Manila Bay often falls calm at night. Furthermore, no Harbourmaster in the Phillipines (a US colony at the time) would have been anything other than a US citizen.

Two other points have just occurred to me.

The Wild Cat is headed for Swatow ("Swatow's a Treaty Port...")

Swatow was indeed a Treaty Port, but according to a friend and mentor who was born there, and was a young man at the date of the story, the place was proverbially "a nest of pirates". He tells a funny story about his application to join an eminent Hong. Having initially been turned down, his father, a not unimportant merchant, threatened to switch his cargoes to the opposition until the Chairman, on a visit to Swatow, saw the young man, and, having informed him that Swatow was a nest of pirates, went on to say, " Tell me something. When your lot pirate one of my ships, they help themselves to the valuables, but they never touch the women. Why is that?"

With commendable presence of mind, he replied "Well, Sir, in Swatow, piracy is a family business..." and was hired. Within a year he was working in London, seconded to the Clyde Shipping Company as assistant manager of their coastal service.

Secondly, there is a reference to a Japanese ship moored just ahead of the Wild Cat - this was written in mid-WW2.


Follow Ups:



Post a Followup

Name:
Eel-Mail:

Existing subject (please edit appropriately) :

or is it time to start a New Thread?

Comments:

Optional Link URL:
Link Title:
Optional Image URL:

post direct to TarBoard test post first

Before posting it is necessary to be a registered user.


[ Follow Ups ] [ Post Followup ] [ TarBoard ]

Courtesy of Environmental Science, Lancaster

space