No land in sight for the first
time since we left Macassar.
At noon calm, with heavy showers, in
which our crew wash their clothes, anti in the afternoon the prau
is covered with shirts, trousers, and sarongs of various gay
colours. I made a discovery to-day which at first rather alarmed
me. The two ports, or openings, through which the tillers enter
from the lateral rudders are not more than three or four feet
above the surface of the water, which thus has a free entrance
into the vessel. I of course had imagined that this open space
from one side to the other was separated from the hold by a
water-tight bulkhead, so that a sea entering might wash out at
the further side, and do no more harm than give the steersmen a
drenching. To my surprise end dismay, however, I find that it is
completely open to the hold, so that half-a-dozen seas rolling in
on a stormy night would nearly, or quite, swamp us. Think of a
vessel going to sea for a month with two holes, each a yard
square, into the hold, at three feet above the water-line,-holes,
too, which cannot possibly be closed! But our captain says all
praus are so; and though he acknowledges the danger, "he does not
know how to alter it - the people are used to it; he does not
understand praus so well as they do, and if such a great
alteration were made, he should be sure to have difficulty in
getting a crew!" This proves at all events that praus must be
good sea-boats, for the captain has been continually making
voyages in them for the last ten years, and says he has never
known water enough enter to do any harm.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 153 of 412
Words from 41118 to 41427
of 111511
