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The additional hands whom Don Jose had brought with him were of great assistance, as they were all expert boat-builders; and in less than a couple of days our craft was launched, and ready to proceed on her voyage. Don Jose and our father had, of course, much to talk about.
The Nordland boat-builders have long since discovered the high fore and aft, sharp-keeled boat, to be the most practical, with one mast and a broad, prettily cut square sail admirably suited to what is most required, rapid sailing in fore and side winds, though less so for tacking.
They are still maritime in their habits, and very competent practical sailors and boat-builders; but though for centuries they divided with the Arabs the carrying trade between Eastern and Western Asia, and though a mongrel Malay is the nautical language of nearly all the peoples from New Guinea to the Tenasserim coast, the Malays knew little of the science of navigation.
Thanks to the fine birch-trees, that grew in abundance around, our boat-builders had procured the very best bark. The canoe was now completed all but the "paying," and that would not take long to do. The gum of the épinette had to be boiled, and mixed with a little grease, so as to form a species of wax. In less than an hour the thing was done.
In the igarite they will cross stormy rivers fifteen or twenty miles broad. The natives are all boat-builders. It is often remarked, by white residents, that an Indian is a carpenter and shipwright by intuition. It is astonishing to see in what crazy vessels these people will risk themselves.
Colonel Lister, writing in 1853, estimated that 20,000 maunds of iron were exported from the hills in the shape of hoes to the Assam Valley, and in lumps of pig iron to the Surma Valley, where it was used by boat-builders for clamps. Nowadays the smelting of iron is carried on in very few places.
"I don't think this man suffered for want of education," said my wife; "he used very good language; that was one of the first things that led me to suspect him. It is not likely that sons of boat-builders speak so correctly and express themselves so well."
Only that portion of the tribe which retired to the hills still maintains any semblance of their old prowess and even those groups are growing smaller year by year. At the height of their power the men of the tribe were noted as boat-builders and fishermen.
Bronson was communicative in the extreme and regaled him of many evidences of Mascola's prosperity, chief among which was the Italian's recent order to a firm of Norwegian boat-builders at Port Angeles of twenty large fishing launches of the most improved pattern. These boats, according to Bronson, were of sufficient tonnage and fuel capacity to enable them to cruise far down into Mexican waters.
We turned down lanes, and went past gas-works, boat-builders' yards, and riggers' lofts, and presently Ham said, "Yon's our house, Mas'r Davy!" I looked over the wilderness, and away at the sea, and away at the river, but no house could I make out. There was a black barge not far off, high and dry on the ground, with an iron funnel for a chimney, and smoking very cosily.
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