CHINESE SHIP "KEYING".

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Ephemera from its historic visit to London, including a signed portrait of the "mandarin" Hesing and a visitor's ticket. Scarce survivals from "one of the most extraordinary voyages ever undertaken... The Chinese junk Keying became the first and only Chinese junk to sail on its own bottom from China via the Cape of Good Hope into the North Atlantic. In the process, it also became the first ever Chinese-built vessel to visit both Britain and the east coast of the United States" (Davies, p. xvii)Financed by a group of Hong Kong-based investors, the voyage was captained by Charles Kellett, Chinese and British sailors together crewing the 800-ton vessel. "Its object was not science or exploration - those twin poles of non-commercial and non-belligerent nineteenth-century seafaring - but was typical Hong Kong: a business proposition aiming to make money by entertaining visitors with exhibits of the crew members in live tableaux on deck and displaying a rather eccentric collection of Chinese objects in the accommodation below. A theme park before its day" (Davies, p. xvii).The ship arrived in Britain in 1848, having previously visited New York, and spent two years there, docked at the East India Docks at Blackwall and then, for the Great Exhibition, near the Strand. Its star attraction was a Chinese man by the name of Hesing (Xisheng), about whom little is known, who posed as a distinguished fifth-rank mandarin - his claim to this elite status is highly doubtful - and received enth

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