In The Smaller Boats Seats, In The Larger Ones Cross- Beams, Are Now Fixed.

They are sprung into slight notches cut to receive them, and are further secured to the projecting pieces of the plank below by a strong lashing of rattan.

Ribs are now formed of single pieces of tough wood chosen and trimmed so as exactly to fit on to the projections from each plank, being slightly notched to receive them, and securely bound to them by rattans passed through a hole in each projecting piece close to the surface of the plank. The ends are closed against the vertical prow and stern posts, and further secured with pegs and rattans, and then the boat is complete; and when fitted with rudders, masts, and thatched covering, is ready to do battle with, the waves. A careful consideration of the principle of this mode of construction, and allowing for the strength and binding qualities of rattan (which resembles in these respects wire rather than cordage), makes me believe that a vessel carefully built in this manner is actually stronger and safer than one fastened in the ordinary way with nails.

During our stay here we were all very busy. Our captain was daily superintending the completion of his two small praus. All day long native boats were coming with fish, cocoa-nuts, parrots and lories, earthen pans, sirip leaf, wooden bowls, and trays, &c. &e., which every one of the fifty inhabitants of our prau seemed to be buying on his own account, till all available and most unavailable space of our vessel was occupied with these miscellaneous articles: for every man on board a prau considers himself at liberty to trade, and to carry with him whatever he can afford to buy.

Money is unknown and valueless here - knives, cloth, and arrack forming the only medium of exchange, with tobacco for small coin. Every transaction is the subject of a special bargain, and the cause of much talking. It is absolutely necessary to offer very little, as the natives are never satisfied till you add a little more. They are then far better pleased than if you had given them twice the amount at first and refused to increase it.

I, too, was doing a little business, having persuaded some of the natives to collect insects for me; and when they really found that I gave them most fragrant tobacco for worthless black and green beetles, I soon had scores of visitors, men, women, and children, bringing bamboos full of creeping things, which, alas! too frequently had eaten each other into fragments during the tedium of a day's confinement. Of one grand new beetle, glittering with ruby and emerald tints, I got a large quantity, having first detected one of its wing-cases ornamenting the outside of a native's tobacco pouch. It was quite a new species, and had not been found elsewhere than on this little island. It is one of the Buprestidae, and has been named Cyphogastra calepyga.

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