f three or four
thousand tons burthen, down to the "junklet" from the nearer provinces
of the Celestial Empire of lesser proportions.

But, all were alike in form, veritable facsimiles of the picture of the
_Great Harry_ of the time of Henry the Eighth, which I remember seeing
in an old book on history when I was cramming up for my examination and
looked at every work I could come across in order to increase my store
of knowledge.

These junks all had great, staring, goggle eyes painted on their bows on
either side, John Chinaman believing that without these fanciful addenda
his stagey-looking craft "no see no piecee walk can do."

Their sails also were very funny, being huge mats, of trapezoidal shape,
that resembled so many Venetian blinds.

These sails were hoisted on tall poles of eighty to hundred feet in
height, without a joint, while their floating rattan cables completed
their theatrical appearance, circling round their prows with the tide
like snakes.

In addition to these were likewise any number of Malay prahus and
"prams" from Borneo and Celebes and the Philippine Islands generally;
Arab dhows and "grabs" from the Persian Gulf; English-captained,
Lascar-manned trading vessels from Calcutta and Madras; fishing
schooners from the Torres Straits and Sydney, laden with cargoes of
sea-slugs, for Chinese consumption; besides merchant ships from every
port in Europe--although, I noticed that the British and American flags
were decidedly in the ascendant.

All this heterogeneous collection of vessels, of every known nationality
and rig, come hither at all seasons, but the Chinese junks mostly when
the north-east monsoon sets in to blow them along with their favourite
stern wind.

They resort here as to a common meeting ground or exchange mart, to swop
their cargoes, the silks and teas and spices and precious gums of the
East being bartered for the manufactures and merchandise of the West;
while the keen though sleepy-looking Dutchmen, Chinese, Jews, Parsees,
Siamese, Englishmen and Yanks, who negotiate and this interchange of
wares manage to conduct the bargaining in their various lingoes by the
aid of a polyglot dialect of their own, chuckling over the dollars and
cash and cowries as they rake them in with the impression that they are
getting the best of the deal, when all the time, perhaps, they are being
cheated themselves!

So Commander Nesbitt now told us, kindly particularising the various
points of