have been persuaded out of
these amazing notions, and taught the European compass, but the ideas
of Sam-Sing and his merry men were as old as their vessel.

I have not yet described my mandarin friend. His name was Ki-Chang; he
was a mandarin of the fifth class, his distinctive mark being a
crystal button on the top of his cap. He was forty-six years old,
intelligent, amiable, and gentlemanly. He and I had much intercourse
during the voyage, with Chung for an interpreter. I taught him a
little English, and how to write his name in English, an
accomplishment of which he seemed extremely proud. Like most of the
educated Chinese, he wrote his own language very beautifully. He was a
wealthy and influential man.

The _King-Shing_ showed herself a remarkably good sea-boat, but
desperately slow. No device could get more than eight knots out of
her, and this was much above her average. We encountered one or two
violent storms, in which she behaved wonderfully. One night the wind,
after veering all round the compass with vivid lightning and thunder,
settled in the south-west and blew a perfect hurricane. All sails were
lowered, except half the fore-sail, and twenty-five men were required
at the mammoth rudder. We were obliged to start some eight tons of
water out of the deck tanks, and everything on deck, fore and aft, was
secured. The junk laboured heavily, but shipped no water. At day-break
the weather moderated, and we were able to set more sail; but in two
or three hours the wind chopped round to the north-west, and blew more
fiercely than ever, attended by squalls of hailstones as big as
marbles, the knocks of which made my countenance look as if I had
come off second-best in a middle-weight "scrap." We lowered the
main-sail again, and set four reefs of fore-sail to scud under. At
three o'clock the vessel took a tremendous lurch, and washed away our
lee-quarter boat. It was dark, and the sea barely discernible at a
distance of thirty yards, being blown into a thick mist. At six the
hurricane continued with unabated fury with terrific squalls; a
fearful sea struck the ship and nearly broached her to. The sea was a
mass of foam, and running very high, but kept down to some extent by
the violence of the wind. Later we were running under bare poles.
Again the gale went down, and again we got up sail, but without
warning a tremendous squall struck us and laid us on our beam ends. A
boat was blown away, the fore-sail split, an