The times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1897-1901, 1900-08-05
CHINESE BOAT BUILDERS.
They Turn Out Ugly But Most Sea-
worthy Craft.
GrOm the London Mail.)

! worthy Craft.
Qrom the London Mail)
The main features of Chinese ship and
| boat building are the light and apparepUF
| frail nature Of the material with which
vessels of every size and shape are con-
| structed: the clumsy form given to his
work by the Celestial artifcer, and the
marvellous ease and safety with which
craft, both large and small, ride on the
toughest weather on sea and river.
The last is no rash statement, the writer
well remembering Witnessing when him
self sailing the China Sea in the teeth of
a typhoon, the total wreckage of more
than one European vessel, while the junks
| and even small native boats in sight
simply reefed or struck their mat sails,
and triumphantly passed with the British
| ship through the Ly-ee-moon Pass, into
the sheltered harbor of Hongkong.
The reason for all this is not far to
| seek. The beam of the junks is usually
broad; they sit upon the water like fiat
Moorish arch. Their sterns are round, and
by consequence, resistive of any tendency
| to take aback."
A peculiar and noticeable thing about
them is the Brobdiugnagian "eye" which
| glares out from each side of the prov.
] This is an ancient superstition.
The ships bamboo planks. If such a
| term be. allowable, are in many parts put
| together with vegetable rope, nails, be-
lieve. being used only in the hull proper.
! Right aft a large cabin is appropriated
to religious purposes. Here is enthroned
the image CT the God of Waters, before
which the aromatic joss stick is forever
burning. The Chinese sailor is nothing il
not a slave to his faith in omens, and all
and sundry the supernatural beliefs of his
countrymen.
He is, when he likes. a fairly good hand
on board ship. but, being by nature and
educative example a coward. he more Oft
en- than not seeks to save his skin at the
expense of his duty. There is very little
difference in form and fitment between the
war junk and the commercial variety.
The weapons are not of the same de-
scription as are those in the few European
built steam warships possessed by the Chi
nese Government. OF long obsolete pat
tern, they are not very formidable except
to themselves. China has not assimilated
Western ideas with the eagerness and ra-
pidty of the Japanese, at any rate in the
matter of naval progress, whatever she
may have done of late. as we are told in
the acquisition and mighty laying up of
advanced types of land armament
Primitiveness is still writ large upon her
marine. warlike and domestic, and al
though the present widespread revolution
may tend to bring about a certain Gilber-
tian "topsy- turveydom," the Chinaman
may perhaps accomplish that upside
down." which in his normal position he
has for centuries failed to appreciate and
even attempt.
The Yangtse Klang boats; the
quaint "sampan." seen b. the new arri-
val rocking on the gentle swells in Hong
kong Bay; the barbaric gorgeousness of
the mandarin's barge-each- and all are
dear to the native soul, and will be i'm
proved away only when improvements can
no longer be resisted. That John China
man car learn much OF his Western
brother in this connection is. of course.
beyond question or argument, but that
the Occident may not find something in
teresting and instructive in the methods
of the Orient, as exemplified by its oldest
and vastest community, only the most
bigoted devotee OF European civilization
will venture to deny.