The slowness of the process I managed to remedy materially during the first day’s work by rigging up a light scaffolding over the canoe, from which I could suspend three or four vine-stems at once; and as they dripped much faster when hanging vertically, I could cover the surface with comparative rapidity. The vines, too, turned out to be even more plentiful than I had supposed, so that the work of coating the canoe progressed briskly. Meanwhile, the evenings’ labours were being carried forward with such good-will that the last of the fittings was well advanced. This was the sail, and a terrible business the cutting out and stitching it had been, for I had had to make it of odd pieces of bark left from the covering of the canoe, and my needles penetrated the tough material with difficulty even when I had made myself a sailmaker’s palm with a plate of bone for a thimble. Still, in spite of all difficulties, the sail had been put together, and now only required to be roped round with a cord of plaited bark fibre to be complete. It is true it was clumsy and ill-shaped, but it was strong and rather large for the size of the canoe--having an area of over thirty square feet--for I reckoned that the great weight of ballast would enable me to carry a good spread of sail. At length, after six days of unintermitting labour, the coating of the canoe was complete. From stem to stern, from deck to floor, she was covered with a continuous sheet of rubber, smeary and uneven, but unquestionably watertight. Even this, however, I did not intend to take for granted, but proposed on the morrow to ladle some water into her with my brass pan--for I finished the coating just as the light was failing--a proceeding that was rendered unnecessary by a heavy shower in the night. It had been my custom to cover the vessel, when I was not at work, with some thatched frames or hurdles that I had made for the purpose to protect her from the increasingly frequent rain; but this being now no longer necessary, I left her uncovered, with the tilt or apron off the well, and when I came to look at her in the morning she contained two or three inches of water. By hoisting her with levers, and rolling her from side to side, I made this water wash all over the inside, but not a drop came through anywhere. She was as tight as a drum, so I rolled her over, and let the water run out. I now entered upon the last task of all--the fixing of the outside keel and the fitting of the rudder; and this would be but a short day’s work, since these parts were finished, even to the tree-nails, and ready for fitting.