148 



THE SEA 



of gongs, jangling of bells, and discordant shouts, the nightly religious ceremonies of 

 the sailors are performed. Lanterns are swinging, torches flaring, and gilt paper burning, 



while quantities of food are scattered in 

 the sea as an offering of their worship. 

 Many of those junks, could they but 

 speak, might reveal a story, gentle 

 reader 



"A tale unfold, whose lightest word 

 Would harrow up thy soul." 



The chief trade of not a few has been, 

 and still is, the traffic of human freight; 

 and it is, unfortunately, only too lucra- 

 tive. Large numbers of junks leave 

 China for the islands annually packed 

 with men, picked up, impressed, or 

 lured on board, and kept there till the 

 gambier and pepper planters purchase 

 them, and hurry them off to the in- 

 terior. It is not so much that they 

 usually have to complain of cruelty, 

 or even an unreasonably long term of 

 servitude ; their real danger is in the 

 overcrowding of the vessels that bring 

 them. The men cost nothing, except 

 a meagre allowance of rice, and the 

 more the shipper can crowd into his 

 vessel the greater must be his profit. 

 " It would," says the writer just 

 quoted, "be a better speculation for 

 the trader whose junk could only carry 

 properly 300 men, to take on board 

 600 men, and lose 250 on the way 

 down, than it would be for him to 

 start with his legitimate number, and 

 land them all safely ; for in the first 

 case, he would bring 350 men to 

 market, and in the other only 300. 

 That this process of reasoning is 



actually put in practice by the Chinese, there was not long ago ample and very 

 mournful evidence to prove. Two of these junks had arrived in the harbour of 

 Singapore, and had remained unnoticed for about a week, during which the owners had 

 bargained for the engagement of most of their cargo. At this time two dead bodies 



JUNKS IX A CHINESE HARBOUR. 



