Page:History of the Indian Archipelago Vol 3.djvu/192

176 commkucl; with arises rather from the sober and orderly character of the people, and the principle on which the crew are paid, each person having an interest in the voyage, with a quantity of tonna<^e proportionate to his ser- vices, than from any skilful and oi'ganized system of discipline. The Chinese are utterly ignorant of navigation, as a science, and even of the useful practical parts of it. They keep no reckoning, and take no ob- servation of the heavenly bodies to ascertain their situation, the ideas of the latitude and lon":ituc]e of places being wholly unknown to them. The mariner's compass used by the Ciiinese is divided into twenty-four parts, probably the ancient sub- divisions of the circumference of the horizon among them, before they became acquainted with the polarity of the magnetic needle, or at least before they applied it to any useful purpose. According to Du Halde, these compasses are all made at Nangazaki, in Japan. If this be true, or was true in the time of those on whose authority he compiled his work, the Chinese may have acquired the use of the mariner's compass through the Ja- pantise, in whose country the customs, learning, and religion, of Europe had at one time made a deeper impression than they ever did in any other part of Asia. From whomever acquired, the Chi- nese compass is a very imperfect instrument, being clumsily fabricated, and the needle of the largest