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Page 26
Such was the _King-Shing_ junk, and such are most of the craft of the
Celestials. They would appear to be gradually coming round to Western
ideas in the matter of ships, and in fact have done so entirely for
war purposes, but the fashions of their ancestors are still good
enough for most of them, and the junk is to be seen everywhere. Not a
mere thing of yesterday is the junk. Vessels essentially similar to
the one I have described were navigating the Chinese seas and rivers
when the fleets of Rome and Carthage were contesting the supremacy of
the Mediterranean, and long before. Rome and Carthage, and many
another mighty maritime power, have risen and passed away utterly,
like bubbles, or dreams, but the Chinaman and his everlasting junk are
still here.
The vessel belonged to some mandarins at Shanghai, who used it for
trading to Cochin-China. It had recently, however, been despatched
with a cargo to Cheefoo, had been blown away north by a gale, and
forced to run into the harbour at Port Arthur to escape the Japanese.
There it had lain until the place fell. The crew numbered fifty-four,
all told.
After floating off the sand-bank, and getting an offing, we were
within the Gulf of Pechili, and determined to make for one or other of
its ports, but on the first day we encountered a very heavy
nor'-wester, which blew us far out of the Gulf. When, after lasting a
day and a night, the gale abated, we were well down the Yellow Sea,
and the skipper, or Ty Kong, whose name was Sam-Sing, determined to
hold on for the port where the junk's owners dwelt. I had no objection
to make to this, nor had the mandarin, who possessed friends and
relatives in the south. The soldiers on board, however, were very
discontented and mutinous, and as they considerably outnumbered the
crew I began to fear trouble. They were all from northern provinces
and had no desire to go south. Their language was scarcely
intelligible even to their nominal countrymen. The immense diversity
of dialects in China is, in fact, a great hindrance to progress by
preventing the unification of the people. After some excited
discussion they were prevailed upon to acquiesce by the solemn promise
of the mandarin to make arrangements with the authorities for their
return to their own parts, or failing that to send them back at his
own expense; besides, the representation that to turn north again
would most likely end in capture by the Japanese vessels, through
whose present cruising-ground the gale had luckily blown us, had great
weight.
I was vastly amused, during my voyage in the _King-Shing_, by the
superstitions of her crew. Their devotion to their idols was indeed
truly edifying. A religious man, according to his lights, was
Sam-Sing, and rigidly punctual in the daily observance of
incense-burning, gong-banging, and other rites supposed to be
propitiatory of the deity. He was also, however, greatly addicted to
opium-smoking, and when under the influence of the drug, of which, as
an old stager, he could consume great quantities without being
stupefied, the idea of the occult power of the goddess, never absent
from his mind, was turned completely upside down. When free from the
fumes of opium nobody could have been more respectful to the Josses,
but when intoxicated, and with the weather threatening, he openly
poured upon them abuse, reviling, and suspicion. He usually started a
pipe of opium about noon, and the change in his demeanour came round
gradually during the afternoon. In the morning he was sober and pious,
in the evening intoxicated and blasphemous, particularly, as I have
said, when the weather was bad. "As for that infernal Chin-Tee," he
would say in effect, shaking his fist in the direction of the idol,
"it's all her fault we're in this mess. What's the use of her--lazy
harridan! Much she cares what becomes of us"--and so on till
overpowered by excess. When by the next morning he had slept off his
debauch, and came round to recollection of his enormities, his
penitence knew no bounds; he would prostrate himself in the
Joss-house, and in the most abject terms implore forgiveness for his
intemperate language over-night. Then he would generally abstain for
two or three days, but at the first sign of bad weather, he took to
his pipe, and Chin-Tee came in for another blast of abuse. The rest of
the crew were always horrified by the shocking impiety of the Ty Kong,
and on more than one occasion I really feared that they were about to
proceed to Jonahize him. They were by no means all opium-smokers; some
of them smoked tobacco, of a vile quality, in metal pipes, with an
under-hanging curved portion containing water, through which the
smoke passed. The opium-pipe is a quite different thing. It is a reed
of about an inch in diameter, and the aperture in the bowl for the
admission of the opium is not larger than a pin's head. The drug is
prepared by boiling and evaporation to the consistence of treacle.
Very few whiffs can be taken from a single pipe, but one is enough to
have an effect on a beginner, as I have already described in my own
case, but an old hand, like the Ty Kong, can smoke for hours.
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