The modern Malay proa is a more ambitious affair. It is built to be light, fast under sail or oar, and very shallow in hull. The last was very necessary in vessels which usually sought safety by fleeing into waters too shallow to permit of serious pursuit. A convenient length was 64 feet, or 72 feet over all; the breadth would be 14 feet and the depth only 4 feet 6 inches. Some were longer and broader, but the Malays were usually careful to increase the draft as little as possible. The accompanying photograph is of a model of a proa having these dimensions, and recently added to the South Kensington Museum. The boat is a combination of Chinese and Malayan design. It will be noticed that the vessel has very fine lines forward, almost identical with those of the Arab dhows of the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, a sharp run aft and shallow floors, and should be very fast. Instead of the fighting deck overhead, already described, she has a deck extending the whole length and breadth of the vessel and slightly below the level of the gunwale, an arrangement which would enable a large number of men to lie concealed behind the bulwarks and ready for instant attack. The deck has two covered hatchways. The roof of the cabin at the stern provides a platform for working the rudder and the guns, there being one brass muzzle-loader on each quarter. The projecting platforms or galleries at the bow and stern provide additional deck space and would facilitate the boarding of a prize. The boat has two pole masts, one set very far forward and the other rather forward of amidships, neither having stays. The sails of all vessels of this class were made of strips of palm leaves, except when the pirates appropriated the sails of captured ships, as they are said to have done at times, and altered them to suit their own vessels. The Chinese type of dropping rudder, which could be raised or lowered by means of a windlass, was a common feature in these Malay proas, the use of the steering paddle being chiefly confined to the smaller craft. The vessel represented is armed with one smoothbore gun carried on the bow platform, and two similar weapons carried aft; she also had six gingals or heavy muskets mounted on swivels, and there was a plentiful supply of arms for hand-to-hand fighting. A very similar boat to the proa, but more heavily and substantially constructed, was that specially favoured by the Dyaks in their head-hunting expeditions. It was long and narrow, and could carry sixty to eighty men. The Borneo Dyaks adopted the flying deck as a fighting platform,[13] but carried the fantastically decorated stern-board to an extravagant height, which must have interfered seriously with the stability of the vessel. These stern-boards are said to have been intended as shields for the occupants of the boats, who turned them end-on to the enemy and were protected by the boards from the hostile arrows and spears.