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The other two junks which carried Diego Belloso and Blas Ruyz with some Spaniards, Japanese, and natives of Manila, reached Camboja with great difficulty, and Blas Ruyz, preceding Belloso, went up the river Mecon as far as the city of Chordemuco.
But now he sat limply, his soft black hat pushed forward on to his nose, his big body shrunk inside his loose clothes, staring at his boots or the Chinese junks in the bay, and assenting absently to the secretary's questions as he opened the Saturday mail. Cheyne was wondering how much it would cost to drop everything and pull out. On the other hand
It was found that the village, which formed a fortified square protected by batteries, could be best approached by the river bank, and the only obstacle in this quarter was that represented by the fire of the guns of two junks, supported by a battery on the opposite side of the river.
It is very good; perhaps better than any of the lot.... However, the entente is now established. My mind, too, is a good deal relieved to-day by seeing the wretched junks, which have been shut up so long by the blockade, with their sails set, gliding down the river. I sent Mr. Wade to visit Yeh yesterday, to see how he took the notion of being sent out of the country to Calcutta or elsewhere.
We returned to the river, where our prisoners were landed, and we three lads had more than one spell on shore before we left that port, notably being in the city on the night of the Feast of Lanterns; but though we had several more brushes with pirates, they were all trivial affairs with small junks, the destruction of the last three being the crowning point of our achievements.
Every now and then, too, came a curious creaking sound, as wood was strained against wood. "Tide's setting in very hard, sir," said Mr Brooke. "Yes," said the captain. "Come on board; ha!" There was another vivid flash, and we distinctly saw the great matting-sails of two junks for a moment, and again all was black.
The Cambridge and some of the junks still held out, when Lieutenant Watson, first of the Calliope, having gallantly succeeded in dragging one of the boats across the raft, launched her on the other side.
It, fact, the Celestial Empire sent, her junks laden with merchandise, that merchandise which shut down the factories of Seville and ruined the Spanish industry, and returned laden in exchange with the silver that was every year sent from Mexico. Nothing from the Philippines at that time went to China, not even gold, for in those years the Chinese traders would accept no payment but silver coin.
Some lost their heads, others escaped, and the rest were turned over to the Chinese navy. The junks were sold for the benefit of the captors, with the exception of the Round Moon, which was delivered back with her cargo to Captain Po-ho, who, considering that he had regained his vessel and property, and a wife in addition, benefited more largely than anybody else by the expedition.
The rice-paper pictures give a very good idea of the forms and colors of the boats, but the thousands of them, and the rate at which they are propelled, are altogether indescribable, either by pen or pencil. There are junks with big eyes on either side of the stem, "without which they could not see their way,"* and with open bows with two six-pounders grinning through them.
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