As I Proposed Making Some Long Voyages In This Boat, I Determined To Fit It Up Conveniently, And Was Obliged To Do All The Inside Work Myself, Assisted By My Two Amboynese Boys.

I had plenty of visitors, surprised to see a white man at work, and much astonished at the novel

Arrangements I was making in one of their native vessels. Luckily I had a few tools of my own, including a small saw and some chisels, and these were now severely tried, cutting and fitting heavy iron-wood planks for the flooring and the posts that support the triangular mast. Being of the best London make, they stood the work well, and without them it would have been impossible for me to have finished my boat with half the neatness, or in double the time. I had a Ke workman to put in new ribs, for which I bought nails of a Bugis trader, at 8d. a pound. My gimlets were, however, too small; and having no augers we were obliged to bore all the holes with hot irons, a most tedious and unsatisfactory operation.

Five men had engaged to work at the prau till finished, and then go with me to Mysol, Waigiou, and Ternate. Their ideas of work were, however, very different from mine, and I had immense difficulty with them; seldom more than two or three coming together, and a hundred excuses being given for working only half a day when they did come. Yet they were constantly begging advances of money, saying they had nothing to eat.

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