(Reprinted from the PEKING & TIENTSIN TIMES)

BY W. V. PENNELL.

The reminiscences below were obtained in the course of numerous interviews with Mr. James Stewart, sen.

I.

Mr. Stewart arrived in Shanghai in October, 1863, after a voyage of 155 days from the Clyde. He sailed as a passenger in the barque Sappho, of Greenock, and came out to take charge of an engineering establishment in Shanghai. The long voyages of those days were rarely so uneventful as the comparatively swift modern travel. Neither were they, it goes without saying, so comfortable. There were always adventures, and sometimes misadventures, in the larger adventure. In the Southern latitudes of the Atlantic his ship encountered the famous Confederate privateer Alabama, which came up to find out the Sappho’s identity.
The course followed the trade winds, round the Cape and then across the Southern Pacific almost to the coast of Australia, thence to Java. The 100 days trip to Java was exceptionally trying, and Mr. Stewart, who weighed 12st. on leaving Scotland, had dropped to 110 lb. largely as the result of the lack of fresh food. When the ship reached the Java port he borrowed 10/-. from the Captain, and, supplementing it with 5s. he still possessed, bought a quantity of pumpkins. The carpenter sewed them up in pieces of canvas and they were hung up under a boat. Pumpkin pie is apparently a nourishing diet, for before the ship reached Shanghai Mr. Stewart had regained his lost weight.
While sailing off the Philippines the ship ran into a terrific typhoon, which carried away the ship's four top masts and one or two yards, and all the sails. The typhoon began at 8 o'clock o: the morning of Mr. Stewart 23rd birthday (September 2 1863) and raged all day an night, ceasing next morning a suddenly as it came. The Captain got the ship under the lee of one of the islands, lashed the wheel, and went to bed, with the remark: "I have done all I can. The rest is in the hands of Providence." The passengers, with the exception of two, helped with the pumps. These two were so terrified by the violence of the elements that they hid themselves in the cargo, "like rats," in abject terror. Two of the crew were washed overboard but brought back aboard again by the next wave--one of those miraculous occurrences not infrequently found in deep sea stories. The ship's carpenter and crew rigged up spare mast and sails from the material aboard, and the ship safely reached Shanghai.

One of the first men Mr Stewart saw after landing was Gordon, of the "Ever Victorious Army." The former's employer. entertained him to dinner the night of his arrival, at the Hotel des Colonies, and Gordon happened to be dining there also The dinner was remarkable for a strange coincidence. Gordon’s bodyservant approached the table at which Mr. Stewart was sitting, bent down and whispered in the latter's ear. "Hello Stewart, when did you come out?" He was an old acquaintance from Stirling who had come out East, but had not prospered and had joined Gordon's Army. He was a superior type of fellow and said he was gathering as many shekels as he could to pay his passage home.

Mr. Stewart was not destined to stay long in Shanghai. The Taipings were outside Shanghai. at Soochow, and business became very bad. It was a hard time for everybody, and in April 1864, he was without work or money. Another great Briton whose name is part of the history of China's foreign intercourse, Sir Harry Parkes, was then Consul in Shanghai. Mr. Stewart unburdened himself to him of his woes. and confided that he was practically starving. Sir Harry looked up at him, remarked that he "did not look like a man who would starve in China," and closed the interview! Evidently he knew whereof he spake, for Mr. Stewart obtained a job as third engineer on the Nanzing, a paddlewheeler of some 400 tons, running between Shanghai and Tientsin.He became second engineer in time, and when he left the ship for employment under the Chinese Government in Tientsin in 1868 he was "chief." The coasters in those days had no trouble about getting cargo. They were loaded down to the gunwale, often to the peril of the ship. A single passage—"returns" were not issued—cost Tls. 100, but passengers got champagne with it! It was in some respects a spacious period!

Mr. Stewart was appointed to take charge of the Arsenal that had been established in the historic joss house on the Haikuanssu. It was in this elaborate place that Lord Elgin signed the Treaty in 1858. During the occupation after the 1860 war it became a Military hospital. One of the favourite pastimes in those days, when the new rifle first came in, was to calculate distances, and the walls of the former joss house showed that it was in this manner that many of the sick or wounded employed their hours of idleness. The walls were covered with figures, and sometimes with cartoons and caricatures. Some of the latter were very good indeed, including a few that would have done credit to Bairnsfather.
Only a few of the many rooms were used as a hospital, and the rest gave shelter to josses of all sizes, scorpions, and what not. Most of the josses had to be cleared out for the machinery. It was. of course, no light task to create an efficient arsenal out of the material available. One of the first things to be done was to cut down a large number of old muskets that had come from Russia. The Chinese could not use them, because they were so long. "The man was too far away from it." as it was once explained. Afterwards 12pounder guns of brass were manufactured. No coke was available, and the only fuel obtainable was anthracite coal. The arsenal had to make ammunition wagons, gun carriages, harness for the mules, etc. It was the making of collars for the horses that occasioned most trouble, perhaps. At first the method adopted was to sew the cover after the straw had been inserted. It had the result of making the collars crinkle and look generally untidy. Then one day Mr. Stewart suddenly remembered an old saddler in Scotland, past whose premises he used to go, and of how he had seen this man pushing the straw into the previously sewn collar. That flash of memory ended these difficulties.

The arsenal was transferred after two or three years to the powder works which had been established on the other side of the river, and when Mr. Meadows was discharged Mr. Stewart was appointed Superintendent. This position he occupied for nearly 3l) years, until he went Home on leave for the first time since his arrival in 1363. He had tried to return Home on seYeral previous occasions, but something had always turned up to prevent it. It was in March, 1900, that he left for Scotland, and two days after he arrived the Boxer trouble started. There were forebodings, of course, before he left, for the situation was becoming lncreasingly dangerous, but it was scarcely expected that trouble would break so suddenly. Mr. Stewart, whose return to his home had been necessitated by the death of his father and the adjustment of his ai~airs, had left part of his family here, and consequently had a miserable time until he rejoined them in November.
The Arsenal was then in the hands of the Russians, wh~ were busily pulling it to pieces, and taking the machinery away. Mr. Stewart did not find it easy to get into the premises, and although General Wogack promised him a pass to inspect the Arsenal, it was not forthcoming. However, a British officer who could speak Russian and had spent a considerable time in the country, happened to be going over to the Arsenal, and he invited Mr. Stewart to accompany him, being ignorant of the fact that the latter was the Superintendent of the Arsenal and that his presence would most like!y be very much resented by the Russians. In this way Mr. Stewart was enabled to go over the whole of the Arsenal, once again, in circumstances at once daring and depressing. Subsequently the French garrison occupied the Arsenal as barracks.