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Updated: June 17, 2025
These we conveyed on board in our little boat, after having carved our names on a chip of iron-wood, thus: which we fixed up inside of the bower. The boat was then hoisted on board and the anchor weighed; which latter operation cost us great labour and much time, as the anchor was so heavy that we could not move it without the aid of my complex machinery of blocks and pulleys.
These we conveyed on board in our little boat, after having carved our names on a chip of iron-wood, thus: JACK MARTIN RALPH ROVER PETERKIN GAY This we fixed up inside of the bower.
A mopane-tree, growing in a small chink, as it increases in size rends and lifts up large fragments of the rock all around it, subjecting them to the disintegrating influence of the atmosphere. The wood is hard, and of a fine red color, and is named iron-wood by the Portuguese.
Many of the trees are valuable as timber, especially the Billian, or Borneo iron-wood tree, which is impervious to the attacks of white-ants ashore and almost equally so to those of the teredo navalis afloat, and is wonderfully enduring of exposure to the tropical sun and the tropical downpours of rain.
I made a tolerably good bedstead out of some iron-wood poles, by stretching strips of elm-bark across, which I plaited strongly together to support my bed, which was a very good one, and the only article of luxury I possessed.
The beautiful roof of iron-wood and sugar-cane leaf was supported by three massive pillars of wood, sunk deeply into the ground. The roof extended about three feet over the wall plates, both to form a verandah and to carry the raindrops free beyond the walls. It was made of sugar-cane leaf and cocoanut leaves all around.
Several forests came to bathe their borders in these rapid waters. Copal-trees, acacias, "bauhinias" of iron-wood, the trunks covered with a dross of lichens on the side exposed to the coldest winds, fig-trees which rose above roots arranged in rows like mangroves, and other trees of magnificent growth, overhung the river.
I followed him to one of the cells, which he opened, and therein was a man lying on his straw mat, undressed, and to all appearance fast asleep. Gimblett ordered him to get up and dress himself. He did so, and came into the yard, where Gimblett inserted the iron-wood gag in his mouth.
We occupied the very stronghold that they had themselves constructed for the defence of their town; and the square being surrounded with strong iron-wood palisades with only a narrow entrance, would be impregnable when held, as now, by fifty men well armed with guns against a mob whose best weapons were only lances.
The town of Tarrangolle contained about three thousand houses, and was not only surrounded by iron-wood palisades, but every house was individually fortified by a little stockaded courtyard.
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