Page:Through China with a camera.pdf/153

 of youths in silken robes step out of a boat and pass into the nearest saloon. Then we hear the warble of the lute and the damsels piping in shrill treble tones; for these maidens have descended from their perch above and are entertaining the city youths, who have come to dine in the saloon, to enjoy a whiff of opium and to bask in smiles so sweet, that they seem like to crack the enamel off the faces of the fair damsels.

Pulling back is hard work for the crew, but they redouble their efforts, for as they say, "Plenty piecee bad man hab got this side, too muchee likee cut throat pidjin," and soon we are once more in mid-stream. Here we pass close under the dark frowning hulks of a fleet of old weather-beaten junks that he moored in a long double line. As everyone already knows all about these junks — what they look like, with their big eyes set in front to scare off the demons of the deep — I need not at- tempt to describe them here; but I may inform the reader that the accompanying picture of the deck of a junk was one which cost me some trouble to obtain. I got it under the following circumstances. Two artistic friends and myself were one day pulling about Hongkong harbour, in quest of a good subject for a picture, and after having scrambled by the aid of a convenient rope, on to the deck of a junk at anchor there, we found the crew busy with a complex machinery of ropes, poles and wind- lasses, and indeed on the point of making sail. Suddenly they forsook their work, confronted us with angry gestures and threat- ened to bar our advance. We enquired for the captains, of whom there are not uncommonly half a dozen on board ; for these junks are built in water-tight compartments, and each owner of cargo is a captain so far as concerns that compart- ment where his own goods have been separately stored. Thus if the compartments be six, the captains are six, and each captain