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Those faint airs blowing up along the Vancouver Island shore made tentative efforts to fill and belly out strongly the mainsail and jib of a small half-decked sloop working out from the weather side of Sangster Island and laying her snub nose straight for the mouth of the Fraser River, some sixty sea-miles east by south.
Finally, the Dayrah Jahi is when the magnetic needle points due north. "Foyst" and "buss," are the names applied by old travellers to the half-decked vessels of these seas. Holcus Sorghum, the common grain of Africa and Arabia: the Somali call it Hirad; the people of Yemen, Taam. The Somal being a people of less nervous temperament than the Arabs and Indians, do not fear the moonlight.
By this time, though still trembling, she was able coolly to consider the situation. She waded to a stout stick of driftwood a few feet away, and with this quickly cleared a space about herself. A grinning small boy, in a small, bright-painted and half-decked skiff, sailed close in to the wall and let go his sheet to spill the wind. "Want to get aboard?" he called. "Yes," she answered.
The last time I was in Baltimore picturesque old place, with its ruined abbey and the memory of the sacking of it by Moorish pirates, and the carrying-off of the women from only the eighteenth century back was when I sailed round in a half-decked 16-footer, designed by Watson. She was a great little boat, with a ton of lead on her keel.
The largest ships were slender, half-decked row-boats, capable of carrying, at most, only about a hundred men, and having a movable mast, which was hoisted, and a sail attached, only to take advantage of a favorable wind. Most of the navigation at this early period was undertaken for the purposes of plunder, and piracy was not deemed dishonorable.
Not only in the outer sea, but in the lagoon itself, a certain traffic woke with the reviving breeze; and among the rest one Francois, a half-blood, set sail with the first light in his own half-decked cutter. He had held before a court appointment; being, I believe, the Residency sweeper-out.
If they were legitimate agents of the law, why these muffled oars, with which they swept the boat across the lagoon, through the gap in the coral reef, and out to sea? And if they were not agents of the law, who were they, and where were they conveying him? The boat was a large one, half-decked, and fitted to stand a heavy sea and rough weather.
It was difficult to man the ships, sailors generally being frightened at the enterprise, but at last the captains succeeded in getting together one hundred and twenty men, and on Friday, August 3rd, 1492, the admiral crossing at eight o'clock in the morning the bar of Saltez, off the town of Huelva, in Andalusia, adventured himself with his three half-decked caravels upon the Atlantic waves.
He walked to where our half-decked boat lay in its chocks, with all her tackle carefully lashed in place, and I could not help feeling proud of our possession, as I thought of the delights of our river trips to come, and the days when we should be busy drying and storing skins on board, for it was planned out that we were to make the rivers our highways as far as possible, and live on board, there being a snug cabin under the half-deck, while well-oiled sail-cloth was arranged to draw over the boom, which could be turned into the ridge pole of a roof, and shut in the after part of the boat, making all snug at night, or during a tropical downpour.
It was agreed between them that Damian should take the command of a half-decked boat, which the wind had driven ashore; that he should equip it as if for a fishing expedition; that he should carry us to Algiers; after which his reëntrance at Palmas, with or without fish, would inspire no suspicion.
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