It Was Covered With
Fine Cane Mats, For The Manufacture Of Which Macassar Is
Celebrated; Against The Further Wall Were
Arranged my guncase,
insect-boxes, clothes, and books; my mattress occupied the
middle, and next the door were my canteen,
Lamp, and little store
of luxuries for the voyage; while guns, revolver, and hunting
knife hung conveniently from the roof. During these four
miserable days I was quite jolly in this little snuggery more so
than I should have been if confined the same time to the gilded
and uncomfortable saloon of a first-class steamer. Then, how
comparatively sweet was everything on board - no paint, no tar, no
new rope, (vilest of smells to the qualmish!) no grease, or oil,
or varnish; but instead of these, bamboo and rattan, and coir
rope and palm thatch; pure vegetable fibres, which smell
pleasantly if they smell at all, and recall quiet scenes in the
green and shady forest.
Our ship had two masts, if masts they can be called c which were
great moveable triangles. If in an ordinary ship you replace the
shrouds and backstay by strong timbers, and take away the mast
altogether, you have the arrangement adopted on board a prau.
Above my cabin, and resting on cross-beams attached to the masts,
was a wilderness of yards and spars, mostly formed of bamboo. The
mainyard, an immense affair nearly a hundred feet long, was
formed of many pieces of wood and bamboo bound together with
rattans in an ingenious manner.
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