تحفة النظار في غرايب الامصار وعجايب الاسفار 13.74: ذكر مراكب الصين

The ships of China are of three kinds: the large ones are called junks (junūk), singular junk (with velar jim with u, and nun without a vowel); the medium ones are called zaw (with a after the za, and waw); and the small ones, each called kakam (with two kafs with a). A large ship of these has twelve sails, or fewer down to three. Their sails are made of bamboo rods woven like mats; they are never lowered, and they turn them according to the direction of the wind, and when they anchor they leave them standing in the wind.

A thousand men serve in one of these ships: six hundred sailors and four hundred fighting men, among whom are archers, shield-bearers and crossbowmen, who are those that shoot naphtha. Each large ship is followed by three [others]: the 'half', the 'third' and the 'quarter'. These ships are built only in the city of al-Zaytūn in China, or in Ṣīn Kalān, which is Ṣīn al-Ṣīn. The manner of building them is that they make two walls of timber and join the space between them with very massive timbers, fastened across and lengthwise with huge nails, each nail three cubits long. When the two walls are joined by these timbers, they build the lower deck of the ship on top of them and push them into the sea and complete the work. Those timbers and the two walls remain next to the water; [the men] go down to them to wash and relieve themselves.

On the sides of those timbers are their oars, which are as large as masts; ten or fifteen men gather at one of them and row standing on their feet. They give the ships four decks,

and in it are rooms, cabins and chambers for the merchants. A cabin has rooms and a latrine, and a key with which its occupant locks it; he takes slave girls and women with him. Sometimes a man is in his cabin and no one else on the ship knows of him until they meet when they arrive at some country. The sailors have their children live in them, and they grow greens, vegetables and ginger in wooden tubs.

The ship's agent is like a great amīr; when he goes ashore, the archers and Abyssinians walk before him with spears, swords, drums, horns and trumpets, and when he reaches the house where he is staying they plant their lances on both sides of its door and remain so for the duration of his stay.

Among the people of China there are those who own many ships, which they send with their agents to [foreign] countries. There are no people in the world wealthier than the people of China.