The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2

our Book hath been occupied thus far, we are now about to enter o

ips in which merchants go to and

0 cabins, wherein the merchants abide greatly at their ease, every man having one to himself. The ship hath but one rudd

in her course by night sends a ripple back alongside of the whale, the creature seeing the foam fancies there is something to eat afloat, and makes a rush forward, whereby it often shall stave in some part of the ship). In such case the water that enters the leak flows to the bilge, which

not have any pitch, but they daub the sides with another matter, deemed by them far better than pitch; it is this. You see they take some lime and some chopped hemp, and the

ge barks or tenders attached to it; these are large enough to carry 1000 baskets of pepper, and carry 50 or 60 mariners apiece [some of them 80 or 100], and they are likewise moved by oars; they assist the great ship by towing her, at such times as her sweeps are in use [or even when she is under sail, if the wind be somewhat on the beam; not if the wind be astern, for then the sails of the big ship would take the

yet another plank, and so on year by year as it is required. Howbeit, they do this only for a certain number of years, and till there are six thicknesses of planking. When a ship has com

the various wonders of India; but first and foremost I must tell you about a number of Islands that there are in that part of th

y large export of it from Fu-chau, and even the chief fuel at that city is from a kind of fir. Several varieties of pine-w

the shifting masts was probably a bowsprit, which, according to Lecomte,

, in our own time introduced into European construction, is still maintained by the Chinese, not only in sea

eeper being used for oakum. The wood-oil is derived from a tree called Tong-shu, I do n

il obtained from the nuts of Elaeococca verrucosa. It is much used for pain

men to each. It will be seen from his account below that great ropes were attached to the oars to pull by, the bulk of timber

implied in Odoric's statement, that the ship in which he went from India to China had 700 souls on board. The numbers carried by Chinese junks are occasionally still enormous. "In February, 1822, Captain Pearl, of the English ship Indiana, coming

val accounts of the China shipping,

s, and with a fair wind they carry ten sails, and they are very bulky, being made of three thicknesses of plank, so that the firs

wer part is constructed with triple planking, in order to withstand the force of the tempests to which they are exposed. And the ships are div

tha. Each large vessel is attended by three others, which are called respectively 'The Half,' 'The Third,' and 'The Quarter.' These vessels are built only at Zayton, in China, and at Sínkalán or Sín-ul-Sín (i.e. Canton). This is the way they are built. They construct two walls of timber, which they connect by very thick slabs of wood, clenching all fast this way and that with huge spikes, each of which is three cubits in length. When the two walls have been united by these slabs they apply the bottom planking, and then launch the hull before completing the construction. The timbers projecting from the sides towards the water serve

heir children, and they sow kitchen herbs, ginger, etc., in wooden buckets. The captain is a very great Don; and when he lands, the archers and negro-slaves march before him with javelins, swords, drums, horns, and trumpets." (IV. pp. 91 seqq. and 247 seqq. combined.) Comparing this very interesting descripti

ven 30 (

rumbelow" of the Christian oarsmen.