2-979-625 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The War in China - Chinese War Junks of the Old Style, 1857. 'Twenty years ago their ships of war were short, misshapen masses of timber, quaint and ungainly in appearance, almost unmanageable, and the wonder to seamen of other nations how a craft of the character of the junk was able to make headway, or combat the dangers and intricacies of the sea and coast...The armament of war-junks...consisted principally of matchlocks, mounted on the rails of the bulwarks...'. From "Illustrated London News", 1857.