It was not a difficult operation to bore some holes in the gunwale of my boat and to hammer in four stout pegs for row-locks, and then I put in a seat, constructed of thin bamboo strips, and all was ready. The craft was more than sixteen feet long, three feet in the beam and hollowed out to a depth of about eighteen inches. The launch was not effected until after I had secured a long, stout painter to the bow, the rope being made of creeper-fibre, twisted and braided. This was pliable and quite as enduring as hemp. Although the Links were manifestly afraid of the lake, they were intensely interested when the craft upon which we had worked so hard and long, went splashing into the water. She righted herself in a second and floated high above the surface. But when I hauled her in with the rope and jumped inside, sat down and got out my sweeps, to row, the astonishment of the fellows was unbounded. They were frightened for my safety, uneasy to the verge of whining, as they ran up and down the beach, and still were all so fascinated that not one could look at anything else. Old Fatty acted precisely like one of those dogs who is crazy to join his master and yet dreads the water so greatly as to fear even wetting his feet. He lifted either foot, and half squatted and gave little jumps, as if about to plunge in and make a bold swim for the boat, till he appeared too ridiculous for words. Then he ran down the shore and back again and stood with his comical head on one side making me laugh uproariously. The boat was great! She was inclined to roll a trifle, owing to the fact that she was the same size from stem to stern, and therefore minus the broad beam which makes a craft steady, but she was remarkably light to row and easily steered. Moreover I found, by throwing my weight to either side, that she had a powerful tendency to return to an even keel, which rendered her almost impossible to turn bottom upward. This I attributed to the fact that while her sides were comparatively thin, the bottom was at least eight inches thick, which made her light on top and heavy below, an excellent arrangement when to give her a larger belly was out of the question. I am bound to admit that she had no “lines,” that indeed she looked like the log she was, clumsy and quite ungraceful. Nevertheless I was prouder as I sat in her hold than is any captain of the noblest ship afloat. I rowed her this way and that, across to a nearby point and then straight away down the middle of the lake for half a mile. When I turned I made out a floating thing a score of yards from the shore on the left—one of my alligator acquaintances, swimming about. I was not afraid of any attack in so large a boat, especially as my nature could not have been so readily surmised by the hungry saurians, while I was rowing. I should not have minded a race anyway, for I felt secure on my own stamping ground and as saucy as a boy with a toy pistol.