THE SEA DRAGON

Evening Star, Issue 23189, 11 February 1939, Page 9

THE SEA DRAGON

A Group of Americans fo Build Chinese Junk to Sail the Pacific— The Chinese as Navigators—Some Earlier Junk Voyages. [By Richard Halliburton,] (Author of ‘ The Royal Road to Romance ‘ The Flying Carpetetc.) No. I. 1 It was seeing a schooner —years ago —with its great wings spread, sailing out through the Golden Gate at San Francisco, that first made me want to go to sea. My heart went straight aboard her, and, until this day, it’s never come home—for long. That beautiful, beckoning schooner disappeared down the horizon. But it gave me ideas. I soon found myself signed up as a seaman on the next best thing—a tramp freighter, which took me to Egypt and Greece, Arabia, and the East Indies. This voyage was as filled with adventure as any young seaman could wish. Yet all the time I felt dissatisfied, because my freighter had no sails —no beauty to equal the full-winged grace of the sailing craft that we sometimes met.

I spent several years in wandering by sea and land, visiting all the nice' warm countries on the map. These travels at last brought me to China. And in the harbour of Foochow I found my first true love again—ships with sails. Not just one or a dozen, but scores and hundreds. The, harbour *was •live with sails. These, ships, this time were not schooners—something far more wonderful and exciting than that. Nor were they yachts or yawls, sloops or luggers, barques or barquentines. They were junks. And they , had, for me, •n immediate and tremendous appeal. No ship I’d ever seen before had such glorious bright-coloured sails as these Chinese craft or such carved, tip-soar-ing castles on the poops, or such gay and gaudy dragon pictures on the sterns. The moment ! set eyes on a Foochow junk I forgot .all about my chaste and clean-lined schooners with the white wings, and cast covetous glances at the bedizened, painted galleons from the Orient. • . A Chinese junk! Always, in my mind,, this meant a ramshackle, unwieldy, ' unseaworthy scow, slogging along and manned by laundrymen. Such dismal ignorance! Junks have beauty, grace, and glamour. In Foochow they were all adorned with banners and gleamed with oil and paint. They bristled with cast iron cannon. On their mast tops sparkled gilded good

THE LAUNCHING. The name? I chose that long ago—the Sea Dragon. On the day of launching the prettiest Chinese girl whom I can find will break h bottle of rice wine on the Sea Dragon’s nose. And as the junk slides down the ways we’ll all beat gongs and shoot olf lire crackers, in proper Chinese fashion, to drive away the demons of storm and shipwreck. Our Sea Dragon’s first voyage has already been charted—across the Pacific to San Francisco in order to participate in the Golden Gate International Exposition. We’ll leave China early in January and reach Treasure Island— God willing—the middle of March. We would like to go the sunny southern way—via Manila. Guam, Wake, to Midway and Honolulu. This was my original plan. But I have learned that for a sailing vessel this southern route in midwinter is impossible. _ The wind blows with such constant violence towards China that sailing towards America consists mostly in being blown backwards. Instead, to get a favourable wind, we will chart our course up the eastern coast of Formosa, and then across 4,000 miles of open ocean to Midway. LURKING DANGERS. The typhoon season will be over. But the torpedo season will be at its height. Since the Japanese launched

luck charms- Their three bat-wing sails, made of shining yellow mats, drove them over the water with the case of a flying seagull. Despite their distinctive Oriental rigging, I had suspicions, on first seeing their up-climb-ing poops and halftnoon hulls, that Cmumbus’s caravels had reached Asia after all, been seized by the Chinese, given a new paint job, and kept in service under the name of junks. Then and there I resolved to buy one at the first opportunity and sail it up and down the seven seas. And now the opportunity has come. As I write I am on my way back to China with a group of American comrades to build a junk just Jike the gaudy, graceful ships 1 saw in Foochow.

their attack on China, the invading navy has sunk hundreds of junks in Chinese waters. The Sea Dragon, with its red_ and white hull and shining yellow sails, would make a splendid target for torpedo boats.

I’ve just learned one reason why the Japanese wage such a merciless campaign against these apparently harmless fisher-junks. In the early days of the war the Chinese civilians were allowed to sail their junks rather much where they chose. Then one day a Japanese airplane carrier—an object of special hatred in China—appeared otf the coast and began to discharge its death-laden planes. The crew was so occupied that it scarcely noticed a group of small junks, busily fishing, which drifted slowly out from shore toward the grey steel monster. Then, when the junks and battleships were only 200yds apart, a Chinese mosquito boat, hitherto concealed, suddenly dashed from the midst of the junlV fleet—full speed at the carrier. Pointblank it loosed a torpedo, and struck the Japanese vessel squarely amid ships. The great carrier was so badly damaged that it had to go into dry dock for three months. At once the Japanese swore vengeance on all junks—honest and other wise. They shelled every junk they could find, set fire to the wreckage, and disposed of the crews (which in China means whole families) by pushing them into the sea without boats or lifebelts. Even at anchor in the harbours of the coastal cities the helpless native craft were systematically bombed—as they still are to-day. Knowing all this, I plan to go first to

Those Foochow junks were 75ft long with a 20ft beim. So must ours be. Their sails were great yellow fans of straw matting. Our sails must be of matting, too. On the sterns of those junks were bright picture galleries of birds and beasts, gods and goddesses. Sn the stern of ray junk there must e whole flocks of painted birds and all the goddesses in a Chinese heaven. The bulging wooden “ eyes,” by means of which those Foochow junks found their way safely across the sea, where a foot wide. With such long and perilous voyages ahead, we had best make our junk eyes twice as wide. Four iron cannon may be enough for junks that never go out of sight of laud. But since we’ll have pirates and sea serpents, whales, an] cannibals, to combat (o.d f'hinese mir s -Jiow all- these dangers lurking), we'll need eight cannon to protect the ship.

Tokio and formally ask the Japanese navy to grant a safe conduct for the Sea'Dragon’s journey through the war zone.

Many people, ignoring the serious dangers resulting from the war, ask me: “Isn’t mid-winter a foolish timo to attempt the Pacific in a junk?” Perhaps it is. However, this risk is less great than it seems. I ran explain why. CHINESE NOT A RACE OF LANDLUBBERS. First of all, contrary to general belief, junks are among the most seaworthy of ships. For 4,000 years China has been building these strange craft, and after 40 centuries of trial and error has learned to build them so that they handle remarkably well in all kinds of weather. Far from being a race of landlubbers, the Chinese are very much at home afloat. That they possess the knowledge of good ship design is not surprising. There are more boats in China than in all other countries put together. Hundreds of thousands of Chinese live their entire lives on boats are born on boats, grow up on boats, grow_ _ old on bats, and die on boats. To them dry land is a foreign world. Moreover, the coast of China offers every possible danger and difficulty that ever confronted a sailor—sudden storms treacherous currents, rocky shores, hidden reefs, typhoons. To keep sailing, and trading, and fishing in such perilous seas the Chinese have had to build staunch, safe boats, and to be masterful sailors. Their seafaring tradition goes back to the beginning of history. Long before the founding of the Roman Empire the Chinese were trading-; in their wonderful junks, with India and Arabia, and controlled the Eastern world with their war fleets. And while the early Mediterranean sailors were hugging the coasts and using the stars for guidance, the Chinese were sailing up and down the high seas, steering by compass-—one of the many great inventions China has given the world. Several centuries ago, to make their junks more seaworthy, the Chinese shipwrights divided the hulls with watertight bulkheads —a safety device which now is used by every shipbuilding nation. China’s junks were possibly trading with the west coast of Mexico well before Columbus “discovered” America. Evidence of this is especially strong in Yutacan. At Chichen-Itza, the magnificently carved stone capital of the Maya Indians, there is a deep sacrificial pool. In to this pool the Mayan priests flung young maidens and gifts of treasure as sacrifices to Yum Chac, the god of rain. A few years ago this tragic well was carefully dredged. Bones of the sacrifices were found. Also, sunk deep in the accumulated slit, were found many sacred offerings of carved jade. And since no deposits of jade are known to exist in the Americas, the likeliest explanation is that these treasures were junk-b'orne from China, 9,000 miles away. THE CHINESE A SEAFARING PEOPLE. In modern times we have incontestable evidence that Chinese junks have sailed in every sea. About a hundred years ago the people of London were astonished by the visit of an extraordinary vessel that came unheralded up the-Thames. It had lug sails, made of mats, big wooden eyes on the bow, fantastic pictures on the stern. This ship

turned out to be the Keyling, an 80ft Foochow junk that had come to England by way of the southern cape of Africa. It carried a cargo of silk and ivory and bizarre presents for Queen Victoria.

In 1875 a whole fleet of war junks came to California. In that year news reached the Emperor of China, reigning in Peking, that thousands of Chinese, who had gone to California to work on the new railroads, were being cruelly mistreated. Outraged at this report, the Emperor resolved to teach the United States a lesson it would not soon forget. He outfitted seven war junljs, armed them with brass cannon, and sent them off to attack the coast of California. He would force the offenders to repent their evil deeds! Somebody told the admiral of this armada that Monterey was the city that must first be subdued. So, east-ward-bound across the Pacific to Monterey the seven junks sailed. Not having realised that the Pacific Ocean was so big, the Emperor had not sufficiently provisioned the fleet. Fresh water gave out before the voyage was half over. The sailors faced death from thirst—when a rainstorm came. Quickly the sails were lowered and used as troughs to funnel rain into the empty tanks. At last this doughty fleet reached Monterey. Fifty gunners stood by their brass cannon ready to blast the city to pieces if it put up a fight. But, far from resisting, the people of Monterey were so astonished, and so delighted, by this unexpected visit of seven Chinese war junks, that the whole town-came down to the shore to welcome the invaders. There was a parade. The pig-tailed, sailors found themselves overwhelmed with hospi-

tality. They liked California 50 much they refused to go home. The older members of the crews got jobs on the railroads, but the younger members stayed on in Monterey as fishermen. The seven junks were ultimately broken up and burned. In 1924 several of tho crew, who still lived on in Monterey, were interviewed by a Chinese magazine editor from San Francisco, and to him they gave the details of the story I’ve told here. In 1922, another junk, the Amoy, sailed by a Dutch captain and his Chinese wife, with three Chinese seamen, left the port of Amoy, and followed the “ great circle ” route across the Pacific. For stores and repairs they put in at Dutch Harbour in the Aleutian Islands. Later, having visited Vancouver and San Francisco, this brave little ship sailed into the Atlantic via the Canal, and is now tied up for display near New York City. THE FATE OF A RECENT JUNK VOYAGE. One of the most amazing of all junk voyages came to a sad end. a few years ago, in Puget Sound. A Japanese junk—less curious in design and decoration than the Chinese models—drifted with the currents, in quest of fish, 1,000 miles to the eastward of Yokohama. When food and water began to run low, the master decided to turn back with the catch. But a violent wind arose and drove the ship further east—east—east. The crew was helpless before the unceasing hurricane. Their water gave out, and there was no rain. Their food came to an end; they could not eat their fish for tho entire catch had rotted. Their sails were ripped to shreds, the

masts swept overboard. Weeks £>f torment passed. One by one the crew died and were pushed into the sea. And then one morning a ship from the American coast guard, out of Seattle, caught sight of a derelict, obviously from some Oriental port, drifting without guidance into the entrance of Puget Sound. The coastguardsmen boarded this ghostly visitor. Several men lay dead on the deck—dead from starvation. There was not one living soul aboard. The log was found intact. On every page appeared, over and over the word “ hunger. This lo<r showed that the junk had started on its helpless, headlong course at the end of December. The coastguardsmen found it in Puget Sound the following April*—blown by tile storm across the wide expanse of the Pacific, sailing <m even after the last man had perished. The story of Dr Petersen’s 36ft junk, the Humrael-Hummel, whose incredible voyage from Shanghai to San Pedro succeeded so recently, is too well known to need retelling. The first report of his very genuine hardships gave me—as one says—pause (especially as his crossing was in mid-summer, and ours must be in winter). However, a communication from Dr Petersen’s two young Russian sailors changed this picture. It seems they have not had their fill of reeling decks, cold beans for supper, and sea-drenched turns at the tiller. For, since their return to Shanghai, they have written to me saying they enjoyed their voyage on the Hummel-Hummel so much that they would like to make the crossing all over again aboard ray Sea Dragon. In reply I reminded them of a Japanese proverb which goes like this : “ You are a fool not to climb Fujiyama once in your life time. But you are a worse fool to climb it twice.” The time may come when I shall regret having refused the offer of these veteran junkmen. For we are not altogether an expert crew. Three of our sailors—George Barstow, student from the Juilliard School of Music, and Robert Chase, a senior at Dartmouth, and Paul Mooney, journalist—have never, so far, even helped to set a sail. John Potter and Gordon Torrey, just out of Dartmouth, are somewhat saltier, having spent their summers aboard their racing yacht at Bar Harbour. Henry von Fehren, in charge of radio and lights and things mechanical, has been aboard an oceangoing yacht for several years, and is thoroughly sea wise. Fortunately, our captain, John Welch, is also a veteran seaman, and has been master of all manner of sailing ships. He vows, with proper salty language, to make sailors of all of us before we’ve been at sea many days. HARDSHIPS OVERCOME BY PREPAREDNESS. Being for the most part amateurs, we are all quite prepared, in the January • weather, to be deathly seasick until we get our sea legs. And we know that there will be other sorts of hardships, too—scanty space, meals scrambled up by ourselves in a gyrating galley, the damp chill of a winter sea, too little fresh water and too much salt; but these things we must accept as a matter of course. They are part of the adventure. We have chosen to cross the Pacific the hardest but. the most exciting way.

As for myself, I have one fervent hope, one prayer: that the wind, and circumstance, will not blow the Sea Dragon into Puget Sound or down to Mexico. I want to steer her straight into the Golden Gate, where, a long time ago, I first saw a white-sailed schooner, and first heard the call of the sea.

(To be continued.) (Copyright 1939 by' Consolidated News Features, Inc.),