brooding-place of storms, which in gyratory coils, like a lasso thrown
wide and large, go twisting north by west. It caught a French frigate
in the loop, and flung her poor bones on the coral reefs, and the
hungry sand absorbed her. It is a peculiarity of those seas. But she
was found, and the petard, like a huge axe wielded by a giant's arms,
cut into her treasure-house and rescued it. The American's expenses
for a journey round the world were paid.

I have heard a sufficiently incredible story of a man submerged in
a Chinese junk and under water twelve hours, yet taken out alive. A
Chinese junk is the nightmare of marine architecture. It is owned
in partnership by a company, but there is this difference from an
ordinary charter-party. Each man owns his share or allotment of the
vessel, and it is divided off into actual compartments or boxes made
water-proof; and each one of these pigeon-holes the hong or merchant
owns and stocks to suit himself. All open out upon the upper deck,
and are battened down--sometimes with a glass skylight if used as a
chamber. The structure in junk form is the thing's proper registry,
since any departure from the ancient model would subject her to heavy
taxation as an alien vessel. [2] It is a very effectual mode of
preventing any improvement in shipbuilding among the Chinese.

One of these clumsy arks went on the rocks in a typhoon, and was
covered over her deck, leaving, however, the projecting skylight on
or near a level with the surface. The hong was in this cuddy-hole,
frantic between personal loss and personal peril. Suddenly there was a
jar and a crash, and the sea beat over her. Fortunately, the skylight
was closed water-tight, but, unfortunately, some of the spars and
rigging blocked up the exit, even if he had dared the venture. The
bolts of the sea barred him in.