varies. The large Cochin Chinese junk which we had just inspected was divided into six compartments, and the small Fo-kien junk into no less than fifteen. All the compartments are separately waterproof, and their sole intention is to add strength to the ship, and, in case of leaking, to prevent the water from extending beyond the subdivision in which the leak actually takes place. The Chinese are ignorant of the use of the pump on board a ship, and have no means of discharging the water but by hand-buckets.

The only guide of the Chinese mariner appears to be the compass. Each of the junks we visited had a small one divided into twenty-four parts, as usual. This was placed close to the little temple near the stern of the ship, dedicated to the protecting deities of the winds and seas, which is invariably found in Chinese vessels. They have no instruments whatever for observing the heavenly bodies, nor any means even of determining a vessel's dead reckoning, and they keep no log or journal. When the wind is not tolerably fair, they can make little progress. When the wind is aft, however, they sail tolerably well. The commander of the Cochin Chinese junk told me, that at the height of the north-east monsoon, he sailed right before the wind from Pulo Kondor, on the coast of Kamboja, to Pulo Timun, on the coast of the Malay peninsula, in three days and a half, a distance of about four hun

dred and thirty miles, which is at the rate of one hundred and twenty-three miles a-day, or little more than five miles an hour. With the winds which he had, it is not improbable that an ordinary English merchant-ship would have sailed at least eight miles, and a good one perhaps twice the distance of the Chinese junk. By the same person's account, the ordinary rate at which money can be borrowed in Cochin China, for maritime adventure, is forty-eight per cent. and the expected rate of profits is proportional,—namely, from eighty to one hundred per cent.

The commander of a ship is usually part owner of her, and the goods are received on freight, the shippers commonly embarking with their own property, which, however, is always under charge of the commander during the voyage, the proprietors having no access to them. On the Cochin Chinese junk, the rate of freight paid for goods I found to be as follows: fine goods, as cottons and silk stuffs, five per cent.; tea, ten per cent.; sugar, twenty per cent.; and rice, forty per cent. In the Fo-kien junk, the freight paid for black tea was one dollar forty cents per picul; which, allowing nine and a half piculs for each ton, is at the rate of thirteen dollars thirty cents.

While on the subject of the trade and navigation of the Chinese, I may take the opportunity of mentioning the very singular species of ad

venture carried on by them in the Straits of Malacca, in large row-boats, commonly known by the native name of prahu pukat.* One of these which I measured, was about sixty-five feet long, nine feet in the beam, and about four feet in depth, and carried a cargo of from one hundred and eighty to one hundred and ninety piculs, or near twenty tons. She was rowed by twelve oars and fourteen paddles, and had the occasional assistance of a sail with fair winds. She had a crew, consisting of the commander and twentysix rowers. Such a boat is usually the property of the commander, and the cargo belongs to the crew, each according to the capital he has contributed to the joint adventure. There is not one idle person on board; for the commander steers, and each of the adventurers has his oar or his paddle. Their adventures are confined between the islands at the eastern extremity of the Straits of Malacca, and the town of that name, out of the influence of the monsoons, and under the protection of the variable winds which characterize these latitudes.† From the rapidity of their course, they are quite secure from the attack of pirates. The voyage backwards and for

* Literally a seine-boat,—this description of vessel having probably been first used for fishing with a net of that description.

+ In the westerly monsoon they often pass out of the Straits of Malacca, visiting the different trading ports on the eastern shore of the Malay Peninsula.