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With the Catamaran once more under sail, and going on her due course, her crew might have seemed restored to the situation held by them previous to their encountering the dead cachalot Unfortunately for them, this was far from being the case. A change for the worse had occurred in their circumstances.
Among the crew was a big, clumsy Dutchman, through whose thick cranium no joke could penetrate, and whose feet were of proportions as huge as his head, each resembling, in size and shape, a Brazilian catamaran.
This done, he launched the whole arrangement overboard; and found himself the proud and happy possessor of what, for want of a better and more appropriate name, he called a "catamaran;" the structure consisting, of course, of the two pontoons arranged parallel to each other, with a water space of six feet between them, and firmly and strongly connected with each other by the platform; the whole forming a very buoyant and commodious raft, capable of being rigged, and promising to behave exceedingly well under sail in smooth and even in moderately rough water.
He said he thought he and his family could easily return to their friends on the mainland by means of the catamaran that had brought them. And Yamba, that devoted and mysterious creature, solemnly pointed out to me a glowing star far away on the horizon. There, she said, lay the home of her people.
At the same instant he sprang to his feet, dropped the steering-oar, as if it had been a bar of red-hot iron; and, striding forward to the starboard bow of the Catamaran stood gazing outward upon the ocean! What could have caused this sudden commotion in both the mind and body of the Coromantee? What spectacle could have thus startled him? It was the sight of land!
The dark line, first narrowly observed by the crew of the Catamaran upon the distant verge of the horizon, was no longer a mere streak of shadowed water.
In all likelihood their pursuers had returned to the spot which they had forsaken; and might at that very moment be mooring their craft to the huge pectoral fin that had carried the cable of the Catamaran. In view of this probability, the idea of returning to the dead whale was scarce entertained, or only to be abandoned on the instant.
Snowball was at the steering-oar, and, thus commanded by her captain, he once more headed the Catamaran in the direction of the drifting boat, while the sailor and William betook them to the oars. Whether the occupant of the gig had yet perceived the raft was not certain.
And this hope became a practical certainty when, upon passing through the entrance channel, the camp came into view, and he beheld not only the tent still standing as he had left it, but the framework of the cutter erect upon the stocks and apparently uninjured. Twenty minutes later the catamaran slid into her usual berth and gently grounded upon the sandy beach.
At length we came to a stately stream that flowed in a NNE. direction to Cambridge Gulf. This, I believe, is the Ord River. Here we constructed a catamaran, and were able to travel easily and luxuriously upon it, always spending the night ashore. This catamaran was exceptionally large, and long enough to admit of our standing upright on it with perfect safety.
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