The Watch Then Cries Out The Number Of Hours From
Sunrise And Sets The Shell Afloat Again Empty.
This is a very
good measurer of time.
I tested it with my watch and found that
it hardly varied a minute from one hour to another, nor did the
motion of the vessel have any effect upon it, as the water in the
bucket of course kept level. It has a great advantage for a rude
people in being easily understood, in being rather bulky and easy
to see, and in the final submergence being accompanied with a
little bubbling and commotion of the water, which calls the
attention to it. It is also quickly replaced if lost while in
harbour.
Our captain and owner I find to be a quiet, good-tempered man,
who seems to get on very well with all about him. When at sea he
drinks no wine or spirits, but indulges only in coffee and cakes,
morning and afternoon, in company with his supercargo and
assistants. He is a man of some little education, can read and
write well both Dutch and Malay, uses a compass, and has a chart.
He has been a trader to Aru for many years, and is well known to
both Europeans and natives in this part of the world.
Dec. 24th.-Fine, and little wind. 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.
Dec.25th.-Christmas-day dawned upon us with gusts of wind,
driving rain, thunder and lightning, added to which a short
confused sea made our queer vessel pitch and roll very
uncomfortably. About nine o'clock, however, it cleared up, and we
then saw ahead of us the fine island of Bouru, perhaps forty or
fifty miles distant, its mountains wreathed with clouds, while
its lower lands were still invisible. The afternoon was fine, and
the wind got round again to the west; but although this is really
the west monsoon, there is no regularity or steadiness about it,
calms and breezes from every point of the compass continually
occurring. The captain, though nominally a Protestant, seemed to
have no idea of Christmas-day as a festival. Our dinner was of
rice and curry as usual, and an extra glass of wine was all I
could do to celebrate it.
Dec. 26th. - Fine view of the mountains of Bouru, which we have
now approached considerably. Our crew seem rather a clumsy lot.
They do not walk the deck with the easy swing of English sailors,
but hesitate and stagger like landsmen. In the night the lower
boom of our mainsail broke, and they were all the morning
repairing it. It consisted of two bamboos lashed together, thick
end to thin, and was about seventy feet long. The rigging and
arrangement of these praus contrasts strangely with that of
European vessels, in which the various ropes and spars, though
much more numerous, are placed so as not to interfere with each
other's action. Here the case is quite different; for though
there are no shrouds or stays to complicate the matter, yet
scarcely anything can be done without first clearing something
else out of the way. The large sails cannot be shifted round to
go on the other tack without first hauling down the jibs, and the
booms of the fore and aft sails have to be lowered and completely
detached to perform the same operation. Then there are always a
lot of ropes foul of each other, and all the sails can never be
set (though they are so few) without a good part of their surface
having the wind kept out of them by others. Yet praus are much
liked even by those who have had European vessels, because of
their cheapness both in first cost and in keeping up; almost all
repairs can be done by the crew, and very few European stores are
required.
Dec. 28th. - This day we saw the Banda group, the volcano first
appearing, - a perfect cone, having very much the outline of the
Egyptian pyramids, and looking almost as regular. In the evening
the smoke rested over its summit like a small stationary cloud.
This was my first view of an active volcano, but pictures and
panoramas have so impressed such things on one's mind, that when
we at length behold them they seem nothing extraordinary.
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