Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
quarters from strong cross beams, 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 main-mast 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 gun-case, 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, 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 smal-
ler. Both these were of matting, and, with two jibs and a fore and aft sail astern of cotton
canvas, completed our rig.
