It is unnecessary to particularize the various sorts of lighters or chop-boats found along the southern coast, the passenger boats plying from town to town along the hundreds of streams, and the smacks, revenue cutters, and fishing craft to be seen in all waters, except to call attention to their remarkable adaptation for the ends in view. The best sorts are made in the southern provinces; those seen at Tientsin or Niuchwang suffer by comparison for cleanliness, safety, and speed, owing partly to the high price of wood and the less use made of them for dwellings. On the head waters of the River Kan the boats are of a peculiarly light construction, with upper works entirely of matting, and the hull like a crescent, well fitted to encounter the rapids and rocks which beset their course.
REVENUE BOATS AND JUNKS.
Besides these various kinds the revenue service employs a narrow, sharp-built boat, propelled by forty or fifty rowers, armed with swivels, spears, boarding-hooks, and pikes, and lined on the sides with a menacing array of rattan shields painted with tigers’ heads. Smugglers have similarly made boats, and now and then imitate the government boats in their appearance, which, on their part, often compete with them in smuggling. In 1863 the imperial government was induced to adopt a national flag for all its own vessels, which will no doubt gradually extend to merchant craft. It is triangular in shape, and has a dragon with the head looking upward. It is usual for naval officers to exhibit long yellow flags with their official titles at full length; the vessels under them are distinguished by various pennons. Junks carry a great assortment of flags, triangular and square, of white, red, and other colors, most of them bearing inscriptions. The number of governmental boats and war junks, and those used for transporting the revenue and salt, is proportionately very small; but if all the craft found on the rivers and coasts of China be included, their united tonnage perhaps equals that of all other nations put together. The dwellers on the water near Canton are not, as has been sometimes said, debarred from living ashore. A boat can be built cheaper than a brick house, and is equally comfortable; it is kept clean easier, pays no ground-rent, and is not so obnoxious to fire and thieves. Most of them are constructed of fir or pine and smeared with wood oil; the seams are caulked with rattan shavings and paid over with a cement of oil and gypsum. The sailing craft are usually flat-bottomed, sharp forward, and guided by an enormous rudder which can be hoisted through the open stern sheets when in shallow waters. The teak-wood anchors have iron-bound flukes, held by coir or bamboo hawsers—now often replaced by iron chain and grapnel.[358]
The old picturesque junk, with its bulging hull, high stern, and great eyes on the bow, is rapidly disappearing before steamers. Its original model is said to be a huge sea monster; the teeth at the cutwater and top of the bow define its mouth, the long boards on each side of the bow form the armature of the head, the eyes being painted on them, the masts and sails are the fins, and the high stern is the tail frisking aloft. The cabins look more like niches in a sepulchre than the accommodations for a live passenger. The crew live upon deck most of the time, and are usually interested in the trade of the vessel or an adventure of their own. The hold is divided into water-tight compartments, a contrivance that has its advantages when the vessel strikes a rock, but prevents her carrying a cargo comparable to her size. The great number of passengers which have been stowed in these vessels entailed a frightful loss of life when they were wrecked. In February, 1822, Capt. Pearl, of the English ship Indiana, coming through Gaspar Straits, fell in with the cargo and crew of a wrecked junk, and saved one hundred and ninety-eight persons (out of one thousand six hundred with whom she had left Amoy), whom he landed at Pontianak; this humane act cost him $55,000.[359]
BRIDGES IN CHINA.
Among secondary architectural works deserving notice are bridges and honorary portals. There is good reason for supposing that the Chinese have been acquainted with the arch from very early times, though they make comparatively little use of it. Certain bridges have pointed arches, others have semicircular, and others approach the form of a horse-shoe, the transverse section of an ellipse, or even like the Greek Ω, the space being widest at the top. In some the arch is high for the accommodation of boats passing beneath; and where no heavy wains or carriages cross and jar the fabric, it can safely be made light. A graceful specimen of this class is the structure seen in the illustration on page [754]. This bridge, though serving no practical purpose, is one of the greatest ornaments about the Emperor’s summer palace of Yuen-ming Yuen. The material is marble; its summit is reached by forty steps rising abruptly from the causeway, and impracticable, of course, for any but pedestrians.
Bridge in Wan-shao Shan Gardens, near Peking.