Fishing-boat (pp. 20 and 45 of Catalogue) is another 

 device, which is found also in India and Siberia. There 

 are models, in the Chinese collection, of the fishing-boats of 

 Swatow, Ningpo, South Formosa, and Ichang. In spite 

 of their apparent clumsiness they turn as on a pivot and 

 promptly answer the helm. They are good sea boats, and 

 are built in watertight compartments, or rather in com- 

 partments intended to be watertight. The wonder is that, 

 in the ages of the " Ark " and the " Argo," the Chinese 

 should have possessed such practical and efficient vessels ; 

 for it is evident, from old books and drawings, that this 

 was the type of boat then in use. 



4th. HarboiLvs, etc. — All along the coasts and the great 

 river Yangtsze, the fishermen have seen the gradual yet 

 rapid extension of the Lights that have been erected by the 

 Customs department of the Chinese Government during 

 the last twenty years ; and they cannot but appreciate the 

 benefits that the Lights have conferred in aid of their 

 industry and in the protection of their property. Quoting 

 from the Times of 15th May last : — 



" Conspicuous at the end of the Court are two large maps of 

 the Celestial Empire, one showing its physical configuration and 

 the other its provinces and towns, &c. The activity shown by 

 the important Chinese department of State over which Sir Robert 

 Hart presides, is exemplified by the many red discs on the 

 China coast which indicate the lighthouses and lightships erected 

 since he became Inspector-General of Customs at Peking in 1863. 

 At that time there were but two small lights in tne Canton district 

 and a lightship at Shanghai. Now there are 73 lights, 4 light- 

 ships, 54 buoys, and 50 beacons, and it is the ambition of the 

 head of this department to see the dangerous coasts of China at 

 least as well lighted as the shores of the British Channel. Of 

 one of the most important lighthouses — that on Breaker Point in 

 the Swatow district — a model is exhibited. It is an iron tower 



