On anchoring, a number of us paid a visit to the shore, which was some distance, in a Chinese “fast-boat,” the ship’s boats being seldom used in those countries, both because of a sanitary regard for a ship’s company, who would suffer from long rows under a new and sickly sun, and because the Chinese conveyances are scarcely the tax of a song: a “fast-boat,” with a crew of three or four rowers, which also serves as the floating habitation of the owner and a family composed of as many more, can be employed for constant attendance on a man-of-war for a very small number of dollars per month. They are always at hand; when not going they are made fast astern, and when triangulating between Whampoa, Macao, and Hong-Kong, they follow with Ruth and Naomi constancy. Will we forget you, old Ashing?—with your punctuality and good-natured readiness, whether disturbed at your chow-chow, or called at late hour of the night? Then, too, your ever equable philosophy; the Irish pilot knew the rocks in the channel well, especially when he thumped on top of one; but your foresight, far surpassing his, always told us, in answer to the question, “Can you take us off?”—“Supposee too much no good wind, no can catchee ship: Supposee no too muchee bad wind, can catchee ship,”—which was so solacing. The name “fast-boat” is a misnomer, except when chased by a good wind, and then they move through the water, impelled by their large mat-sails, with great rapidity. They are built in a wedge-like shape, generally some twenty feet long, with a small indented place with seats under matting for their passengers, and movable decks, below which the crew stretch themselves to sleep. Since the days of the “old woman who lived in a shoe,” nothing can be found which has been made to contain more human beings in the same space than a Chinese fast, or tanka boat, besides having room for cooking purposes, a watertank, a spare spar, and a small altar, in whose front a joss-stick kept burning propitiates their tutelar deity. Ye pampered denizens of the crowded city, upon whose elbows the bricks and mortar of more plebeian neighbors crowd too close, go and learn of those human bees of the world, economy of space.