تحفة النظار في غرايب الامصار وعجايب الاسفار 13.74.2

13.74.2

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.