Junk Keying

The Junk "Keying" (zh-cp|c=耆英|p=qíyīng, literally "Elder and Brave"; the English name is based on Cantonese pronunciation) was a three-masted, 800-ton Foochow Chinese trading junk which sailed from China around the Cape of Good Hope to the United States and England between 1846 and 1848. She is of particular interest, since she testifies to the power of Chinese shipping and shipbuilding at the time of the beginning of industrialization in the West.

"Keying" had been purchased in August 1846 in secrecy by English businessmen, who braved a Chinese law prohibiting the sale of Chinese ships to foreigners. She was manned by 30 Chinese and 12 Englishmen, and commanded by the British captain Kellett during her travel.

* Junk "Keying" left Hong Kong in December 1846.
* She rounded the Cape of Good Hope in March 1847.
* She stopped at St Helena in April 1847.
* She was in New York in July 1847.
* She visited Boston in November 1847.
* She then arrived in England in April 1848.

New York visit

The "Keying" was the first ship from China to visit New York. She moored off the Battery on the southern tip of Manhattan in July 1847, and was received with great fanfare.

The Cantonese crew of Keying were understandably angry as they only signed on for an eight 'month voyage to Singapore and Batavia (now Jakarta). Twenty six of them left and at least some of them were 'exhibited' by P.T. Barnum on his version of Keying that he had built in Hoboken (he claimed he had it towed from China).The 26 crew that left Keying returned to Canton on board the Candace October 6 1847. The crew of the hoax 'Keying' were described by the Brooklyn Eagle as one third white and two thirds negroes or mulatoes so probably no Chinese from the real Keying were ever on the P.T. Barnum hoax.

She stayed several months in New York, and was visited by 4,000 tourists a day, who were paying 25 cents to board the ship and observe its design and crew.

"Keying" also moored in Boston on November 18th 1847, by the Charles River Bridge, according to the "Boston Evening Transcript" of 1847. She was visited by many people, with as many as four to five thousand on Thanksgiving Day.

England visit

The Junk next sailed to England. A storm, occurring on February 28, wrecked her two boats, ripped the foresail, and disabled the hardwood ironbound rudder, which was hung in the Chinese manner without gudgeons or pintles. During the repair of the rudder the second mate drowned.

The junk was fast, sailing between Boston and England in 21 days (land to land), a fast time even for a steam packet of the period::"The "Keying" next visited Boston, whence she sailed direct for London on the 17th of February last, and arrived in St Aubin's Bay, Jersey, on the 15th March, having performed the voyage, from land to land, in 21 days - a short period even for the American packet-ships." ("Illustrated London News", 1848)The Junk visited England on March 1848, and a medal was made in honour of her arrival. The obverse of the medal gives the following account::”The first junk that ever rounded the Cape of Good Hope, or appeared in British waters. Her dimensions are length 160ft. Depth of hold: 19ft. Burden: 800 tons Chinese measurement. Rudder 7 1/2 tons, mainsail 9 tons. Mainmast 85ft long from deck. The ship is built of teak wood. She sailed from Hong Kong 6th December 1846, arrived in England 27th March 1848, 477 days from Canton. "Captain Kellet", commander."

The ship was praised by the British as excellent in sea-worthiness, and practically superior to their own::"She proved herself an excellent sea-boat; and her powers of weathering a storm equal, if not surpass, those of vessels of British build." ("Illustrated London News", 1848)

A multitude visited the ship, including Queen Victoria and various members of the Royal family.

The "Illustrated London News" of July 29, 1848 described the visits to the "Keying" as follows:

:"The ROYAL CHINESE JUNK "KEYING" manned by a Chinese Crew. Visitors received by a Mandarin of rank and Chinese Artist of celebrity. Grand Saloon, gorgeously furnished in the most approved style of the Celestial Empire. Collection of Chinese Curiosities, &c. The "Keying" is now open for Exhibition, from Ten to six, in the East India Docks, adjoining the Railway and Steam-boat Pier, Blackwall.—Admission, One Shilling." ("The Illustrated London News", 1848)

:"ADMISSION, ONE SHILLING.—During the limited period which the ROYAL CHINESE JUNK will remain in London, the charge for admission will be reduced to One Shilling. This most interesting Exhibition, which has been justly called "the greatest novelty in Europe," has been visited by her Majesty the Queen, all the Royal Family, and an immense number of persons, including nearly all the nobility and foreigners of distinction in London. Junk Tickets, including fare and admission, are issued by the Blackwall and Eastern Counties Railways. Omnibuses direct, and conveyance also by Steam-boat from all the Piers between Westminster and Woolwich; fare 4d. Catalogues obtainable only on board, price 6d." ("The Illustrated London News", 1848)

Also in "The Times"::"There is not a more interesting Exhibition in the vicinity of London than the Chinese Junk: one step across the entrance, and you are in the Chinese world; you have quitted the Thames for the vicinity of Canton." (The Times).

The "Keying" was towed from London to the river Mersey by the steam tug Shannon, arriving May 14, 1853, anchored off Rock Ferry on the Cheshire shore. On September 29, 1853 the junk was preparing to leave for foreign ports in three weeks. It was dismantled "for research" by Redhead, Harling and Brown.

"The Chinese junk once a most popular attractive exhibition, is now rotting neglected and uncared for on the shore at Tranmere Ferry opposite Liverpool" from Plymouth and Devonport weekly journal, Thursday, December 6 1855

Precedents

Junk "Keying" may not have been quite the first Chinese sailship to round the Cape of Good Hope, since the Venetian monk and cartographer Fra Mauro describes in his 1457 Fra Mauro map the travels of a huge "junk from India" 2,000 miles ( 3,000 km) into the Atlantic Ocean in 1420, though to translate "una naue ouer çoncho..." as 'junk' is perhaps rather tendentious given that Fra Mauro describes it as 'from India (da India)'. The descriptor is equivocal between 'having departed from India' and 'of Indian design provenance'. If it was a junk, then depending on what credence one places on not widely accepted theories about the voyages of the ships of Admiral Zheng He's squadrons, then that may be one explanation. As likely, given the penetration of Arab mariners down the east coast of Africa, is a voyaging vessel from the Indian Ocean trading 'circuit'.

Aftermaths

A large-scale model of Junk Keying is visible since September 2005 in the new Hong Kong Maritime Museum, in Stanley, Hong Kong. The model is thought by some to be incorrect however: the shape of the hull being thought to be wrong because it lacks the great curvature of the original vessel which is clearly and consistently shown in some of the many illustrations of the junk of the time. However, as the museum's exhibit shows with its use of the contemporary Currier print made during the Keying's visit to the USA, the exaggerations of other renditions are probably a function of many western artists' inability to 'see' an unusually shaped hull, particularly the high 'wings' either side of the bow, typical of the Fuzhou style the ship is said to have been built in, and the similarly elevated bulwarks of the poop deck. The actual sheerline of Fuzhou junks is far from exagerrated. Much of the confusion with respect to the Keying arises from the failure of western measurements of the heights of bow and stern above the waterline to indicate whether what was being measured were the tops of 'wings' and 'poop', or of the weather deck at bow and stern. The exaggerated measurements in most contemporary reports suggest it was the former, not the latter.

The Hong Kong Maritime Museum model was based on contemporary reports and images allied to a more comprehensive analysis of traditional Fuzhou junk lines. The result unquestionably more accurately fits the accounts of the Keying's sea-keeping qualities than could have been the case had it in fact have had the bizarrely exagerrated curvatures shown in the contemporary prints referred to, a curvature otherwise unknown in similar vessels for the obvious reason that the acutely distorted waterlines that would result when heeled would have rendered the vessel unmanageable.

References

*Norman Brouwer, "New York's Unusual Chinese Visitor & the Junk Keying," "Seaport Magazine" 14, no. 2 (Summer 1980): 18-19.
*"Sea quest: small craft adventures from Magellan to Chichester" by Charles A. Borden. Philadelphia: McRae Smith Co., 1967, ISBN 0-7091-0028-0

External links

* [http://www.mcny.org/Collections/paint/Painting/pttcat32.htm The Waugh painting at the Museum of the City of New York]
* [http://www.seemotive.de/html/djunk.htm Chinese sea travels (German)]