internal waterways of the
Empire but far afield, at Singapore, in Siamese waters and amongst the
East India Islands, and it may be interesting for yachtsmen to know
that the problems of water-tight compartments, centre-boards, balanced
and perforated rudders, which during the past few decades have
exercised the minds of designers and builders in this country, were
solved many centuries ago by the Chinese, and almost every junk afloat
contains some, and not unfrequently all, of these equipments.

In the stormy waters of the Formosa channel, where the monsoons raise
a mountainous sea, thousands of fishing-boats, far out of sight of
land, ply their business in weather which would cause the masters of
English smacks to run for shelter.

Mail steamers on the voyage between Hongkong and Shanghai pass through
these fleets and their miles upon miles of bamboo-floated nets, and
oftentimes it occurs that a good view of some of the craft may be
obtained from deck at the distance of only a few yards, when it can be
seen that their crews consist not of men alone as in other countries
but of whole families--fathers, mothers, children and infants--whose
home is in reality on the rolling deep.

That many of these hardy souls perish at their work is a certainty,
for it frequently happens that steamers sight their luckless craft
bottoms upwards or rescue survivors from the wreckage.

Out of Shanghai harbour cumbersome junks make their ways across the
Yellow Sea to ports along the northern coasts or to the hermit kingdom
of Corea. These vessels have frequently five or six masts spread out
like a fan, from the foremast, which rakes forrard at an extraordinary
angle, to the mizzenmast, which shoots well out over the stern.
Ill-shaped sails of matting, ropes made of twisted bamboo splits,
hemp, or cocoa-nut fibre, huge wooden anchors, and a total absence of
paint lend to them a most ramshackle and unseaworthy appearance, while
clothes drying on the line, cocks crowing, pigs rambling about at
will, plants growing in pots and old tins, together with the presence
of women and children, introduce a rustic and farmlike element, and
it is always a matter of wonder to me how these floating curiosity
shops are able to thread their ways unaided through tortuous channels
and crowded shipping out to sea, and when once there, why they do not
succumb to the first rough weather they encounter.

Taken as a whole, Chinese junks are but roughly built, a