which projected out two or three feet on each side, and to which extent the deck
overhung the sides of the vessel amidships. The rudders were not hinged but
hung with slings of rattan, the friction of which keeps them in any position in
which they are placed, and thus perhaps facilitates steering. The tillers were not
on deck, but entered the vessel through two square openings into a lower or half
deck about three feet high, in which sit the two steersmen. In the after part of the
vessel was a low poop, about three and a half feet high, which forms the
captain's cabin, its furniture consisting of boxes, mats, and pillows. In front of
the poop and mainmast was a little thatched house on deck, about four feet high
to the ridge; and one compartment of this, forming a cabin six and a half feet
long by five and a half wide, I had all to myself, and it was the snuggest and
most comfortable little place I ever enjoyed at sea. It was entered by a low
sliding door of thatch on one side, and had a very small window on the other.
The floor was of split bamboo, pleasantly elastic, raised six inches above the
deck, so as to be quite dry. It was covered with fine cane mats, for the
manufacture of which Macassar is celebrated; against the further wall were
arranged my guncase, insect-boxes, clothes, and books; my mattress occupied
the middle, and next the door were my canteen, lamp, and little store of luxuries
for the voyage; while guns, revolver, and hunting knife hung conveniently from
the roof. During these four miserable days I was quite jolly in this little snuggery
more so than I should have been if confined the same time to the gilded and
uncomfortable saloon of a first-class steamer. Then, how comparatively sweet
was everything on board—no paint, no tar, no new rope, (vilest of smells to the
qualmish!) no grease, or oil, or varnish; but instead of these, bamboo and rattan,
and coir rope and palm thatch; pure vegetable fibres, which smell pleasantly if
they smell at all, and recall quiet scenes in the green and shady forest.
Our ship had two masts, if masts they can be called c which were great
moveable triangles. If in an ordinary ship you replace the shrouds and backstay
by strong timbers, and take away the mast altogether, you have the arrangement
adopted on board a prau. Above my cabin, and resting on cross-beams attached
to the masts, was a wilderness of yards and spars, mostly formed of bamboo.
The mainyard, an immense affair nearly a hundred feet long, was formed of
many pieces of wood and bamboo bound together with rattans in an ingenious
manner. The sail carried by this was of an oblong shape, and was hung out of the
centre, so that when the short end was hauled down on deck the long end
mounted high in the air, making up for the lowness of the mast itself. The
foresail was of the same shape, but smaller. Both these were of matting, and,
with two jibs and a fore and aft sail astern of cotton canvas, completed our rig.