and of the habits of its population, tends to show that they have adhered to established types with even more than Oriental tenacity.[1] 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.
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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
- ↑ Sir John Herschel has called attention to the fact that the Chinese have preserved registers of comets and other celestial phenomena for more than a thousand years before the Christian Era. "Familiar Lectures," p. 94, 1868.
