Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
ing a new handle to his chopping-knife, another is stitching away at a new pair of trousers or
a shirt, and all are as quiet and well-conducted as on board the best-ordered English mer-
chantman. Two or three take it by turns to watch in the bows and see after the braces and
halyards of the great sails; the two steersmen are below in the steerage; our captain, or the
juragan, gives the course, guided partly by the compass and partly by the direction of the
wind, and a watch of two or three on the poop look after the trimming of the sails and call
out the hours by the water-clock. 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 un-
derstood, in being rather bulky and easy to see, and in the final submergence being accom-
panied 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 com-
pass, 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
. 24
th
.—Fine, and little wind. No land in sight for the first time since we left Macas-
sar. At noon calm, with heavy showers, in which our crew wash their clothes, and in the af-
ternoon 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 and 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
