w, and after that I cut some which were very clean and
straight, intending them for the great arrows. With these we returned
once more to the camp, and there I set-to and trimmed them of their
leaves, keeping these latter, for I had a use for them. Then I took a
dozen reeds and cut them each to a length of twenty-five feet, and
afterwards notched them for the strings. In the meanwhile, I had sent
two men down to the wreckage of the masts to cut away a couple of the
hempen shrouds and bring them to the camp, and they, appearing about
this time, I set to work to unlay the shrouds, so that they might get
out the fine white yarns which lay beneath the outer covering of tar
and blacking. These, when they had come at them, we found to be very
good and sound, and this being so, I bid them make three-yarn sennit;
meaning it for the strings of the bows. Now, it will be observed that I
have said bows, and this I will explain. It had been my original
intention to make one great bow, lashing a dozen of the reeds together
for the purpose; but this, upon pondering it, I conceived to be but a
poor plan; for there would be much life and power lost in the rendering
of each piece through the lashings, when the bow was released. To
obviate this, and further, to compass the bending of the bow, the which
had, at first, been a source of puzzlement to me as to how it was to be
accomplished, I had determined to make twelve separate bows, and these I
intended to fasten at the end of the stock one above the other, so that
they were all in one plane vertically, and because of this conception, I
should be able to bend the bows one at a time, and slip each string over
the catch-notch, and afterwards frap the twelve strings together in the
middle part so that they would be but one string to the butt of the
arrow. All this, I explained to the bo'sun, who, indeed, had been
exercised in his own mind as to how we should be able to bend such a bow
as I intended to make, and he was mightily pleased with my method of
evading this difficulty, and also one other, which, else, had been
greater than the bending, and that was the _stringing_ of the bow, which
would have proved a very awkward work.

Presently, the bo'sun called out to me that he had got the surface of the
stock sufficiently smooth and nice; and at that I went over to him; for
now I wished him to burn a slight groove down the center, running from
end to end, and this I desired to be done very exac