Giving orders for the immediate discharge of the materials for the boom, at a spot which I selected immediately after we had come to an anchor, I turned in and slept soundly until past midday, resting again all the afternoon; so that when evening came I had quite recovered from the fatigue of the previous night, and was pronounced by the doctor in charge of the hospital ashore to be progressing toward complete recovery quite as rapidly as could be reasonably expected, while my wound was healing in fine style. About four o'clock that afternoon, word was brought to me that the whole of the materials intended for the construction of the boom had been landed; and I went ashore to inspect them. They consisted for the most part of enormous balks of timber and massive cables; but there were also immense quantities of chain to serve as lashings, stout staples, iron bars, innumerable bundles of long, massive, pointed spikes, and thousands of empty casks, stoutly hooped, without bung-holes, and coated with pitch to ensure permanent watertight-ness. Commander Tsuchiya, whom I had placed in charge of the discharging operations, had done his work well, stacking the various items each by itself, and keeping a careful account of the quantities of each. He handed me a copy of his list, and after I had inspected the whole of the material, I returned to my ship and sat down to plan out the details of the construction of the boom, which, with the list of the quantities before me, was a comparatively easy task. Dawn of the following day found us all ready to make a start, and with Tsuchiya again as my principal _aide_, we quickly got to work, pressing every available hand into the service. Many hands make light and quick work, especially where those hands are willing, but I was astonished at the ardour and zest which those handy little Japanese seamen manifested; they toiled untiringly all through that long, hot day, with the result that, when we knocked off at nightfall, we had considerably more than half a mile of that boom put together and secured in position by ponderous anchors and stout chain cables.