Travel Reference
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nearly, or quite, swamp us. Think of a vessel going to sea for a month with two holes, each a
yard square, into the hold, at three feet above the water-line,—holes, too, which cannot pos-
sibly be closed! But our captain says all praus are so; and though he acknowledges the
danger, 'he does not know how to alter it—the people are used to it; he does not understand
praus so well as they do, and if such a great alteration were made, he should be sure to have
difficulty in getting a crew!' This proves at all events that praus must be good sea-boats, for
the captain has been continually making voyages in them for the last ten years, and says he
has never known water enough enter to do any harm.
Dec . 25 th .—Christmas-day dawned upon us with gusts of wind, driving rain, thunder and
lightning, added to which a short confused sea made our queer vessel pitch and roll very un-
comfortably. About nine o'clock, however, it cleared up, and we then saw ahead of us the
fine island of Bouru, perhaps forty or fifty miles distant, its mountains wreathed with
clouds, while its lower lands were still invisible. The afternoon was fine, and the wind got
round again to the west; but although this is really the west monsoon, there is no regularity
or steadiness about it, calms and breezes from every point of the compass continually occur-
ring. The captain, though nominally a Protestant, seemed to have no idea of Christmas-day
as a festival. Our dinner was of rice and curry as usual, and an extra glass of wine was all I
could do to celebrate it.
Dec . 26 th .—Fine view of the mountains of Bouru, which we have now approached con-
siderably. Our crew seem rather a clumsy lot. They do not walk the deck with the easy
swing of English sailors, but hesitate and stagger like landsmen. In the night the lower boom
of our mainsail broke, and they were all the morning repairing it. It consisted of two bam-
boos lashed together, thick end to thin, and was about seventy feet long. The rigging and ar-
rangement of these praus contrasts strangely with that of European vessels, in which the
various ropes and spars, though much more numerous, are placed so as not to interfere with
each other's action. Here the case is quite different; for though there are no shrouds or stays
to complicate the matter, yet scarcely anything can be done without first clearing something
else out of the way. The large sails cannot be shifted round to go on the other tack without
first hauling down the jibs, and the booms of the fore and aft sails have to be lowered and
completely detached to perform the same operation. Then there are always a lot of ropes
foul of each other, and all the sails can never be set (though they are so few) without a good
part of their surface having the wind kept out of them by others. Yet praus are much liked
even by those who have had European vessels, because of their cheapness both in first cost
and in keeping up; almost all repairs can be done by the crew, and very few European stores
are required.
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