This Is A Very Ingenious Contrivance, Which
Measures Time Well In Both Rough Weather And Fine.
It is simply a
bucket half filled with water, in which floats the half of a
well-scraped cocoa-nut shell.
In the bottom of this shell is a
very small hole, so that when placed to float in the bucket a
fine thread of water squirts up into it. This gradually fills the
shell, and the size of the hole is so adjusted to the capacity of
the vessel that, exactly at the end of an hour, plump it goes to
the bottom. 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!
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