We did not take another voyage for some days, for my dreams were
haunted by visions of the monster, and I felt a shuddering reluctance
even to look at the canoe, upon which I seemed to see tentacles
writhing. And when we did again embark, it was only to paddle out to
the fishing-ground I have mentioned, though by and by, when the
recollection of the monster had become somewhat dimmed, we cruised
about the coast sometimes for the mere pleasure and exercise of it, and
to make ourselves more expert in the management of our vessel. After a
time the notion came to us of rigging up a mast and sail, and trying
what we could do in real navigation. We had some difficulty in
stepping the mast, which was a straight pine sapling; but the way we at
length hit upon was as follows: we fastened two straight logs athwart
the canoe, setting them parallel, and just so far apart as gave room
for the mast. Having set up the mast between them, we lashed two more
logs, but shorter, crosswise upon the first two, close up against the
mast, which was then, as you perceive, gripped pretty firmly by the
four logs. The sail gave us little trouble, for we had become expert
by this time in weaving, and we wove a sort of huge mat with long
grasses, which we found to serve excellently well. Spars and cordage
were also easily made, though they took a prodigious time, and we one
day hoisted our sail to see how our contrivances would act.
[Illustration: Our Canoe]
[Sidenote: Rigging]
We were much disappointed when we found that as soon as the sail caught
the wind our vessel heeled over, so that we had to lower the sail
immediately, or we should have been capsized. After some thought we
hit upon a remedy, which was to make some alterations in the weight of
the outrigger, and also in the length of the outrigger beam; and when
we had spent a deal of time in making experiments, and running some
risks of losing the vessel, we managed so that she ran perfectly steady
with an ordinary breeze. And then we discovered that, our stability
being assured, we could sail marvellously close to the wind and at a
very fair speed, much faster, indeed, than we could paddle, and it then
became our delight to make little trips round the coast and some
distance out to sea, always very carefully looking out first from our
watch-tower to be sure that no savages were in sight.
[Sidenote: The Red Rock]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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