Foochow Junk, showing Eye.
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In the estuary, and as far up as Chinkiang, sea-going papicoes from Ningpo are to be seen in great numbers. These gaily-painted vessels of from twenty to eighty tons, with their high freeboards, wide sterns, raking masts, tanned sails and gaudy vanes, are extremely quaint and picturesque.
Via the Grand Canal, which connects Tientsin with Hangchow, great quantities of tribute rice are forwarded by Chinese officials from the Central and Southern provinces to their Manchu rulers in the north, every Manchu, owing to the bare fact that he is of the ruling race, being entitled from his birth to a monthly allowance of rice and silver, and as the canal crosses the Yangtse at Chinkiang many deep-draught grain junks may be seen arriving there with cargoes from various places on the river.
A few miles higher up, at a place called Iching, there are always scores of junks anchored in orderly rows waiting to load salt as it arrives overland from the sea-coast, where, being a Government monopoly, it is manufactured in saltpans under official supervision.
Both the grain junks and the salt junks possess a certain official status, and are therefore kept in far better trim than the ordinary trader, and ranging anywhere from sixty to one hundred and fifty tons, are probably the best class of craft which frequent inland waters. They are heavily built, with good beam and watertight compartments. Their lines, while forbidding any thought of speed, are not ungraceful, and eminently suitable for weight carrying. With square, massive bows they thicken away aft, until, curving upwards with a bold sweep of the gunnels, their covered-in sterns, high above the balanced rudder, form good quarters for the lowdah and his family, where from tiny windows women and children peep in shy curiosity at the foreigner sailing by.
The mainmast, an enormous spar of some sixty or seventy feet in length, is stepped almost amidships in a kind of tabernacle, and has neither stays nor shrouds, its only visible support being a wooden prop, which a few feet above the deck takes part of the pressure when running before the wind, so that on gazing up at its dizzy height one continually wonders why in heavy weather it does not go by the board or pound its way through the bottom of the vessel. The foremast, which is considerably smaller and stepped well forrard, is in like manner devoid of any kind of stay. Each mast sets one enormous sail of graceful shape, and but loosely made of a coarse, native material, resembling cheap calico. The cloths, running vertically, are interwoven with the bamboo reefing battens, and though but lightly stitched together, seem capable of withstanding an enormous strain.
Varnished a light yellow, which shimmers in the sun, and displaying gaudy banners on which the signs of the guilds to which they belong are printed in large characters, it is a beautiful sight to watch a fleet of these stately ships glide by, with their towering sails goose-winged before the breeze, and churning up the waters with their blunt, unyielding prows.
Amongst the elaborate system of guilds which permeates Chinese society, one of the most meritorious is the lifeboat guild. Apart from official aid and direction, it is mostly supported by voluntary contributions, and to an extent which allows of lifeboats being stationed at many points of danger.