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A wobbling erection of crossed oars, a plank insecurely poised on the shoulders of two men, a rocking bloto, and an occasional wade to shore, with shoes and stockings in hand, vary the monotony of the proceedings.
Crescent-shaped Boeroe, where difficulties in landing involve launch, bloto, and paddling through a long reach of shallow water to a black swamp, possesses a commercial rather than an artistic value, being the only place in the Archipelago which exports eucalyptus oil, locally known as kajopoetah.
A rudely-built bloto, merely the hollowed trunk of a tree, crosses the water, with a torch flickering at the prow, for the sun has set, and the crimson afterglow begins to fade from the serrated crests of the opposite heights.
A straight road between crowding palms crosses a wide rice-plain, opening out of the cleft carved by the mountain river, and leads to the curious Lake of Limbotto, a green mass of luxuriant water-weeds, the dense vegetation solidifying into floating islands of verdure, intersected by narrow channels, only navigable to a native bloto skilfully handled, for Nature alternately builds up and disperses these flowery oases, blocking up old water-ways and opening new ones with bewildering confusion.
The return to the ship involves a bloto across the bay, with many misgivings as to the seaworthy capacities of the clumsy craft, but four bamboo safety-poles, fastened by forked sticks to the sides of the hollowed log, suffice to steady it enough to avoid capsizal.
At Parigi, canopied by spreading palms, the atap houses, with bamboo rafters strengthening the fragile walls, stand in neglected gardens, overgrown with a tangle of flower and foliage. The low tide makes the dangerous bloto a necessity, though the hollowed tree, top heavy and water-logged, is in imminent peril of capsizing every minute of the long course between ship and shore.
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