But, all were alike in form, veritable facsimiles of the picture of the _Great Harry_ of the time of Henry the Eighth, which I remember seeing in an old book on history when I was cramming up for my examination and looked at every work I could come across in order to increase my store of knowledge. These junks all had great, staring, goggle eyes painted on their bows on either side, John Chinaman believing that without these fanciful addenda his stagey-looking craft "no see no piecee walk can do." Their sails also were very funny, being huge mats, of trapezoidal shape, that resembled so many Venetian blinds. These sails were hoisted on tall poles of eighty to hundred feet in height, without a joint, while their floating rattan cables completed their theatrical appearance, circling round their prows with the tide like snakes. In addition to these were likewise any number of Malay prahus and "prams" from Borneo and Celebes and the Philippine Islands generally; Arab dhows and "grabs" from the Persian Gulf; English-captained, Lascar-manned trading vessels from Calcutta and Madras; fishing schooners from the Torres Straits and Sydney, laden with cargoes of sea-slugs, for Chinese consumption; besides merchant ships from every port in Europe--although, I noticed that the British and American flags were decidedly in the ascendant. All this heterogeneous collection of vessels, of every known nationality and rig, come hither at all seasons, but the Chinese junks mostly when the north-east monsoon sets in to blow them along with their favourite stern wind. They resort here as to a common meeting ground or exchange mart, to swop their cargoes, the silks and teas and spices and precious gums of the East being bartered for the manufactures and merchandise of the West; while the keen though sleepy-looking Dutchmen, Chinese, Jews, Parsees, Siamese, Englishmen and Yanks, who negotiate and this interchange of wares manage to conduct the bargaining in their various lingoes by the aid of a polyglot dialect of their own, chuckling over the dollars and cash and cowries as they rake them in with the impression that they are getting the best of the deal, when all the time, perhaps, they are being cheated themselves! So Commander Nesbitt now told us, kindly particularising the various points of interest to us two youngsters and explaining all we did not know, which meant pretty nearly everything, as he had served in these waters before; while to Larkyns and myself Singapore and its migratory population, with their prominent characters and characteristics, were all new, as, indeed, they were to most of the fellows in the gunroom, excepting Mr Stormcock and Plumper, the fat senior mate, both of whom, like the commander, had previously been on the station and were acquainted of old with the place and its people.