Note (return) — STRANGE SEA INDUSTRIES AND ADVENTURES.

I have heard a sufficiently incredible story of a man submerged in a Chinese junk and under water twelve hours, yet taken out alive. A Chinese junk is the nightmare of marine architecture. It is owned in partnership by a company, but there is this difference from an ordinary charter-party. Each man owns his share or allotment of the vessel, and it is divided off into actual compartments or boxes made water-proof; and each one of these pigeon-holes the hong or merchant owns and stocks to suit himself. All open out upon the upper deck, and are battened down—sometimes with a glass skylight if used as a chamber. The structure in junk form is the thing's proper registry, since any departure from the ancient model would subject her to heavy taxation as an alien vessel.2 It is a very effectual mode of preventing any improvement in shipbuilding among the Chinese.