board, and during the rare intervals when it
didn't rain, made myself acquainted with our outlandish craft, some of
the peculiarities of which I will now endeavour to describe.

It was a vessel of about seventy tons burthen, and shaped something like
a Chinese junk. The deck sloped considerably downward to the bows, which
are thus the lowest part of the ship. There were two large rudders,
but instead of being planed astern they were hung on the 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 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