commemorative of the visit of a Persian embassy in the early 7th century, a ship is shown which, if not a junk, is manifestly influenced by that type of vessel. (See Torr, Ancient Ships, plate VII, fig. 40.)
Marco Polo ([Book III, Chap. I) gives a detailed description of the junks of that day: (Yule's edition II, 249–51.)
"The ships in which merchants go to and fro amongst the Isles of India, are of fir timber. They have but one deck, though each of them contains some 50 or 60 cabins, wherein the merchants abide greatly at their ease, every man having one to himself. The ship hath but one rudder, but it hath four masts; and sometimes they have two additional masts, which they ship and unship at pleasure. . . .
"The larger of their vessels have some thirteen compartments or severances in the interior, made with planking strongly framed, in case mayhap the ship should spring aleak. . .
"The fastenings are all of good iron nails and the sides are double, one plank laid over the other, and caulked outside and in . . . with lime and chopped hemp, kneaded together with wood-oil.
"Each of their great ships requires at least 200 mariners, some of them 300. They are indeed of great size, for one ship shall carry 5000 or 6000 baskets of pepper; and they used formerly to be larger than they are now. And when there is no wind they use sweeps, so big that to pull them requires four mariners to each. . . . Every great ship has certain large barks or tenders attached to it; these are large enough to carry 1000 baskets of pepper, and carry 50 or 60 mariners apiece; some of them 80 or 100." So Fa-Hien left Ceylon in "a large merchantman, on board of which there were more than 200 men, and to which was attached, by a rope, a smaller vessel, as a provision against damage or injury to the large one from the perils of the navigation." (Travels, chap. xi.) And landing from this vessel in Java-dvīpạ, where he spent five months, he "again embarked in another large merchantman, which also had on board more than 200 men. They carried provisions for 50 days."
(See Yule's Marco Polo, II, 252–3, for description of junks in other mediaeval writers; also, for a full account of Burmese ship-building, primitive and modern, Ferrars, Burma, 132–8.)
60. Imported . . everything.—Yule, in his Marco Polo (II, 333), quotes from the Arab geographer Wassáf: "Maabar extends in length from Quilon to Nellore, nearly 300 parasangs along the sea-coast. The curiosities of China and Máchin, and the beautiful products of Hind and Sind, laden on large ships which they call Junks, sailing like mountains with the wings of the wind on the surface of the water, are always arriving there. The wealth of the Isles of the
