Evening star., 1939-01-29
By Richard Halliburton,


sailing out through the Golden Gate
at San Francisco, that first made
me want to go to sea. My heart
went straight aboard her, and, until
this day, it's never come home-for
long.
That beautiful beckoning schooner
disappeared down the horizon But
1t gave me ideas. I soon found
myself signed up as seaman on
the next best thing-a tramp
freighter, which took me to Egypt
and Greece, Arabia and the East
Indies. This voyage was as filled
with adventure as any young sea-
man could wish. Yet all the time I
felt dissatisfied because my freighter
. had no sails-no beauty to equal the
full-Winged grace of the sailing craft
that we sometimes met.
l spent several years in wandering
by sea and land, visiting all the
nice warm countries on the map
These travels at last brought me to
China. And in the harbor of Foo
chow I found my first true love
again-ships with sails. Not just
one or dozen, but scores and hun
dreds. The harbor was alive with
sails.
These ships, this time, were not
schooners. Something far more Won
derful and exciting than that. Nor
were they yachts or yaWls, sloops
or luggers, barks or barkentines
They were junks. And they had,
for me, an immediate and tre-
mendous appeal. No ships I'd ever
seen before had such glorious,
bright-colored sails as these Chinese
craft, or such carved, upsoaring
castles on the poops, or such gay
and gaudy dragon pictures ON the
sterns.
The moment I set eyes on a Foo
chow junk I forgot all about my
chaste and clean-lined schooners
with the white wings and cast
covetous glances at the bedizened,
painted galleons from the Orient.
A Chinese junk! Always. in my
mind, this meant a ramshackle,
unwieldy. unseaWorthy scoW. slog-
ging along, and manned by laundry
Junks have beauty, grace and
glamour In Foochow they were all
adorned with banners. and cleaned
with oil and paint. They bristled
with cast-iron cannon On their
mast-tops sparkled gilded good
luck charms. Their three bat-Wing
sails made of shining yellow mats,
drove them over the water with
the ease of flying seagull. Despite
their distinctive oriental riggings,
I had suspicious, on first seeing their
up-climbing poops and half-moon
hulls, that Columbus caravels had
reached Asia after all, been seized
by the Chinese, given a new paint
job, and kept in service under the
name of junks.
Then and there I resolved to
buy one at the first opportunity
and sail it up and down the Seven
Seas.
And now the opportunity has
come. AS I write, I'm on my way
back to China with group of
American comrades, to build a junk
just like the gaudy, graceful ships
I saw in FoochoW.
Those Foochow junks were IS
feet long with a 2O-foot beam So
must ours be. Their sails were great
yellow fans of straw mating. Our
sails must be of mating, too. On
the stern of those junks we're bright
picture galleries of birds and beasts,
gods. and goddesses. On the stern
of my junk there must be whole
flocks of painted birds and all the
goddesses in a Chinese heaven
The bulging wooden eyes" by
means of which those FoochoW
junks found their way safely across
the sea, were foot wide. With
such long and perilous voyages
ahead, we'd best make our junk
eyes twice as wide Four iron can
non may be enough for junks that
never go out of sight of land. But
since we'll have pirates and sea-
serpents, whales and canribals, to
combat (old Chinese maps show all
these dangers lurking), we'll need
eight cannon to protect the ship.
The name? I chose that long
ago-the Sea Dragon. On the day
of launching, the prettiest Chinese
girl whom I can find will break
bottle of rice wine on the Sea
Dragons nose. And as the junk
slides down the ways we'll all beat
gongs and shoot off fire crackers,
In proper Chinese fashions, to drive
away the demons of storm and ship
wreck.
Our Sea Dragons first voyage
. has already been charted-across
the Pacific to San Francisco in
order to participate in the Golden
Gate International Exposition. Well
leave China early in January and
reach Treasure Island-God willing
the middle of March. We would
like to go to the sunny, southern
way-via Manila, Guam, Wake, to
Midway and Honolulu. This was
my original plan. But I have
learned that for sailing vessel,
this southern route, in midWlnter,
: Is impossible The wind blows with
such constant violence toward China
that sailing toward America con-
sists mostly in being blown back
ward.
Instead, to get a favorable wind,
we will chart our course up the
eastern coast of Formosa, and then
across 1000 miles of open ocean to
Midway-
The typnoon season will be over
But this eorpedo season will be at
its height. Since the japanese
launched their attack on China the
invading navy has sunk hundreds
Of junks in Chinese waters. The
Sea Dragon, with its red and white
hull and shining yellow sails, would
make a splendid target for torpedo
boats.
I've just learned one reason why
the Japanese wage such merciless
campaign against apparently harm
less fisher -junks In the early days