Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 1).djvu/183

 and of the habits of its population, tends to show that they have adhered to established types with even more than Oriental tenacity. In the "Asiatic Researches" (vol. vi. p. 204) is a representation of one of the oldest Chinese merchant vessels which have been preserved: it exhibits a model almost as perfect as any of their vessels of our own time.

Moreover, the ordinary junk now in use for the coasting and inland navigation of that country, will be noticed as forming an exact counterpart of many of the Egyptian vessels engaged on the trade of the Nile, and, more especially, that called paro, another description of trading craft very common in China; while the account given by Sir George Staunton of some of the small vessels of China exhibits a