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There, standing in towards the island, though still at a considerable distance, were several mat-sailed vessels, which had certainly a great resemblance to the piratical craft we had before seen. Mr Thudicumb had been examining them with his glass, and had great fears that they were pirates. "We must get on shore as fast as we can," he said, "and prepare our friends.
Three days later we were lying in Singapore harbour, and I had one or two runs ashore to have a good look at the town, with its busy port full of all kinds of vessels, from the huge black-sided steamer and trim East Indiaman, to the clumsy high-sterned, mat-sailed, Chinese junk, and long narrow Malay prahu.
He shook his head as he glanced at the various forms of trading-boat moored off the town, from the tiny sampan to the heavy, clumsy mat-sailed vessel, whose stern towered up, and whose great bamboo yards looked as if they must be perfectly unmanageable. "What do you think we had better do, then row about here and watch?"
We were to have sailed at four P.M., but mat-sailed boats, with cargoes of Chinese, Malays, fowls, pine-apples, and sugar-cane, kept coming off and delaying us.
Quilty. "Hivin! Fine comp'ny ye'd be f'r the holy men and blessid saints an' martyrs an' pure, snow-white angels! Why, ye idolatrous, stick-burnin', kow-towin', joss-worshippin' pagan son iv a mat-sailed junk and a chopstick, they'd slam the pearly gates forninst yer face and stick their holy fingers to their blessid noses at yez. Hivin!
The little steamer has long ago submerged her load-line, and is only about ten inches above the water, and still they load, and still the mat-sailed boats and eight-paddled boats, with two red-clothed men facing forward on each thwart, are disgorging men and goods into the overladen craft.
An hour later, "Easy ahead," shouts the Portuguese-Malay captain, for the Rainbow is only licensed for one hundred passengers, and the water runs in at the scuppers as she rolls, but five of the mat-sailed boats have hooked on.
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