Sailboats
Rowboats
Junks
Japanese Craft
“In this voyage we pass innumerable small islands, particularly in the straits between Shikoku and Nippon. They are all mountainous, and for the most part barren and uncultivated rocks. Some few have a tolerable good soil and sweet water. These are inhabited, and the mountains, though never so steep, cultivated up to their tops. These mountains (as also those of the main land of Nippon) have several rows of firs planted for ornament’s sake along their ridges at top, which makes them look at a distance as if they were fringed, and affords a very curious prospect. There is hardly an island, of the inhabited ones, but what hath a convenient harbor, with good anchoring ground, where ships may lie safe. All Japanese pilots know this very well, and will sometimes come to an anchor upon very slight pretences. Nor, indeed, are they much to be blamed for an over-carefulness, or too great a circumspection, which some would be apt to call fear and cowardice. Their ships are not built strong enough to bear the shocks and tossings of huge raging waves. The deck is so loose that it will let the water run through, unless the mast hath been taken down and the ship covered, partly with mats, partly with sails. The stem is laid quite open, and, if the sea runs high, the waves will beat in on all sides. In short, the whole structure is so weak that, a storm approaching, unless anchor be forthwith cast, the sails taken in, and the mast let down, it is in danger every moment to be shattered to pieces.
“All the ships and boats we met with on our voyage by sea were built of fir or cedar, both which grow in great plenty in the country. They are of a different structure, according to the purposes and the waters for which they are built. The pleasure-boats, made use of only for going up and down rivers, or to cross small bays, are widely different in their structure, according to the possessor’s fancy. Commonly they are built for rowing. The first and lowermost deck is flat and low; another, more lofty, with open windows, stands upon it, and this may be divided, like their houses, by folding screens, as they please, into several apartments. Several parts are curiously adorned with variety of flags and other ornaments.
“The merchant-ships which venture out at sea, though not very far from the coasts, and serve for the transport of men and goods from one island or province to another, deserve a more accurate description. They are commonly eighty-four feet long and twenty-four broad, built for sailing as well as rowing. They run tapering from the middle towards the stern, and both ends of the keel stand out of the water considerably. The body of the ship is not built bulging, as our European ones; but that part which stands below the surface of the water runs almost in a straight line towards the keel. The stern is broad and flat, with a wide opening in the middle for the easier management of the rudder, which reaches down almost to the bottom of the ship, and lays open all the inside to the eye. The deck, somewhat raised towards the stern, consists only of deal boards laid loose, without anything to fasten them together. It rises but little above the surface of the water, when the ship hath its full lading, and is almost covered with a sort of a cabin, full a man’s height, only a small part of it towards the stern being left empty to lay up the anchor and other tackle. This cabin jets beyond the ship about two feet on each side; and there are sliding-windows round it, which may be opened or shut, as occasion requires. In the furthermost parts are the cabins, or rooms for passengers, separate from each other by folding screens and doors, with floors covered with fine neat mats. The furthermost cabin is always reckoned the best and for this reason assigned to the chief passenger. The roof, or upper deck, is flatfish, and made of neat boards curiously joined together. In rainy weather the mast is let down upon the upper deck, and the sail extended over it, affording to the sailors and the people employed in the ship’s service shelter and a place to sleep at night. Sometimes, and the better to defend the upper deck, it is covered with common straw mats, which for this purpose lie there at hand. The ship hath but one sail, made of hemp, and very large. She hath also but one mast, standing up about a fathom beyond her middle towards the stern. This mast, which is of the same length with the ship, is hoisted up by pulleys, and again, when the ship comes to an anchor, let down upon deck. The anchors are of iron, and cables twisted of straw, and stronger than one would imagine. Ships of this burden have commonly thirty or forty hands apiece to row them if the wind fails. The watermen’s benches are towards the stern. They row according to the air of a song, or other noise, which serves at the same time to direct and regulate their work and to encourage the rowers. They do not row after our European manner, extending their oars straight forwards, and cutting just the surface of the water, but let them fall down into the water almost perpendicularly, and then lift them up again. This way of rowing not only answers all the ends of the other, but is done with less trouble. The benches of the rowers are raised considerably above the surface of the water. Their oars are, besides, made in a particular manner, calculated for this way of rowing, being not straight like our European oars, but somewhat bent, with a movable joint in the middle, which, yielding to the violent pressure of the water, facilitates the taking them up. The ship’s timbers and planks are fastened together with hooks and bands of copper. The stern is adorned with a knot of fringes made of thin, long, black strings. Men of quality in their voyages have their cabin hung all about with cloth, whereupon is stitched their coats of arms. Their pike of state, as the badge of their authority, is put up upon the stern on one side of the rudder. On the other side there is a weather-flag for the use of the pilot. In small ships, as soon as they come to an anchor, the rudder is hoisted up, and one end of it extended to the shore, so that one may pass through the opening of the stern, as through a back door, and walking over the rudder, as over a bridge, get ashore. Thus much of the ships. I proceed now to other structures and buildings travellers meet with in their journeys by land.
