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It consists of a huge paddle-wheel with buckets like those of a dredger, that fills a trough that runs down into the fields. The other is a water-raising device that is worked by bullocks. A large leather skin is hauled up from the river by a rope over a wheel. This rope is harnessed to a bullock which walks backwards and forwards hauling up the water-skin and letting it down again.
Everett started up the Congo in a small steamer open on all sides to the sun and rain, and with a paddle-wheel astern that kicked her forward at the rate of four miles an hour.
The paddle-wheel was between the two hulls, and near the stern of the craft. The engine was on deck, and the upper part of the paddle-wheel was boxed up above the main deck. She had a broad opening on each side of her lower deck, through which she could receive her wood and freight. Forward of these doors were the quarters for the crew on one side, and the kitchen and ice-house on the other.
Practically the water is thus kept in motion just as it would be if a hose with a strong jet of water were inserted and caused to play at an obtuse angle against the inner side. Motion having been imparted to the fluid in the tank, a simple device such as a paddle-wheel immersed at its lower end, may be adopted for taking up the power and passing it on to the machinery required to be actuated.
We would try a preliminary run in the quiet water close to the shore, before making the test in the swift current. The order was given to cast off, and for two men, the owner and another, to hold to the ropes and follow on the shore. The engine was started, the paddle-wheel revolved, slowly at first but gathering speed with each revolution.
The admiral's flag was flying on board the Calcutta, 84; he had under him the Winchester, of 50 guns, the Sybil and Pique, of 40, and the Hornet and Encounter, screw-steamers, the first of 17 and the other of 15 guns, and three paddle-wheel steamers and three sloops of war.
In this fabric devoted to certain destruction, there was no living thing except a white cat, which sat on the red-painted shingle roof and mewed piteously. When he got close to the mill, Timar swung the rope and hook suddenly round his head, and aimed it at the paddle-wheel.
Oh, how lovely it was with the trees in baby leaf, and some wild things blossoming. And even then industry had planted itself. There on the farther bank of Waters River was the iron mill, where Dr. Nathan Read invented his scheme for cut nails. And he built a paddle-wheel steamboat that was a success before Robert Fulton tried his.
A few days after landing at Busra we embarked on a paddle-wheel boat to pursue our way up-stream the five hundred intervening miles to Baghdad. Along the banks of the river stretched endless miles of date-palms. We watched the Arabs at their work of fertilizing them, for in this country these palms have to depend on human agency to transfer the pollen.
We put to sea again at two o'clock p.m., on May 30th, and steered for Saint David's Head, the most westerly point of Wales. During our passage across Saint George's Channel, one of the blades of the starboard paddle-wheel became out of order; the engine was stopped, and the blade cut away. Some hours afterwards, a similar accident happened to the other wheel, which was remedied in the same manner.
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