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Updated: May 4, 2025
Our command to the cochero upon his mounting, was a la Balsa, trusting to be able to direct him on the way, but as we depended somewhat upon the fellow's knowledge of the proper place to turn off, found ourselves again disappointed, for the confounded postillion either could not or would not find the road, and out to the ferry again he drove us, in spite of my teeth, and all the Spanish I could get through them.
Thus we went on for three days and nights, the wind from the north blowing all the while and the balsa taking no hurt, by the end of which time I reckon that we had travelled as far along the coast as we had done in six months when we journeyed over land, at which I rejoiced.
Then Quilla and the lady Mira came forward and, placing their hands beneath my elbows, assisted me to climb out of that balsa, which I think was the strangest way that ever a shipwrecked wanderer came to land.
Behind yonder rock is my balsa and with it are the two maidens. Say, is it your wish to bide here upon this isle, or to return into the sea, or to accompany me back to the town of Quismancu? If so, we must sail ere the weather breaks, lest we should be drowned." "Certainly it is my wish to accompany you, Lady, though a god of the sea cannot be drowned," I said quickly before Kari could speak.
But no; there was no sign of his young master in that direction; moreover, the balsa was lying moored in its proper place; also the cutter was at her usual moorings. There was therefore no possibility that the Inca had taken it into his head to go for a solitary early morning sail.
These skin boats, if boats they are, are called balsas. Sometimes the watermen quarrel, and one sticks his knife into another's balsa, and as soon as he does so, the man whose balsa has been cut has to strike out for his life towards the shore, for the wind soon gets out of it.
"I have seen them no less than three times at close quarters, and always with the same disastrous results. The first time was when, during my passage of the lake on a balsa, one of my companions had the misfortune to fall into the water. Ere the balsa could be stopped and paddled back to where the man was struggling, two of the monsters appeared and tore him limb from limb.
The largest balsa that Harry had ever seen upon the lake was not nearly big enough for the purpose; a hooked plesiosaurus would drag it under water without an effort, and then what would become of its occupants? The probabilities were too awful for contemplation, and the idea was not to be entertained for a moment.
The slits are so cut, that, when the raft is in motion, the edges of these planks shall meet the water. It is clear, that if both the guaras be thrust quite down, and held fast in a perpendicular direction, they will offer a broad surface towards the side, and thus, by acting like the leeboards of a river-barge, or the keel of a ship, prevent the balsa from drifting sidewise or dead to leeward.
Unfortunately, perhaps, they were obliged to abandon the balsa about mid-afternoon, the water channel abruptly coming to an end, and thus necessitating a return to their original mode of travel.
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