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Updated: June 18, 2025
The plan of elevating a gun above a shot-proof deck at the moment of aiming and firing, and dropping it for loading or protection by means of hydraulic cylinders, and the plan of placing a gun upon the top of the armor-clad portion of the ship, covering it with a shot-proof hood, and loading it from below, and the plan of a rotating battery, in which one gun is in a position to fire while the others attached to the same revolving frame are loading, all these obviously feasible plans have the advantages of avoiding port-holes in the inhabited and vital parts of the vessel, of rendering the possible bursting of a gun comparatively harmless to the crew and ship, and of rapid manoeuvring, as compared with the turret system, besides all the advantages of the turret as compared with the casemate or old-fashioned broadside system.
As in the models from which she had been built, she rowed two banks of oars, the one worked by men upon deck, the others through small port-holes. The latter could only be used when the weather was fine; when the sea was high they were closed up and fastened. The lower-deck oars were each rowed by one man, while the upper bank, which were longer and heavier, had each two men to work it.
They were not then, however, as now, pointed through port-holes, but were mounted so as to fire over the bulwarks of the vessel. In those days, therefore, ships of war could have had but one armed deck, and were probably urged by oars as well as by sails.
On the boughs of some larger trees hanging over the stream parties of monkeys might be seen eating the fruits, chattering, jumping, flying almost, from bough to bough. We afterwards made nearer acquaintance with these droll creatures. At last we reached the Fort, a long white building manned by Malays, and with cannon showing at the port-holes.
She seemed suddenly to have taken the bit in her teeth, and she was rushing forward at a speed which she had not before exhibited. Paul Vapoor was evidently wide awake. A little later her port-holes flew open. The crisis was at hand; for the Dauphine was darting in between the Leopard and the Bellevite, between father and son.
"In the distance it looked an enormous length, its great bulk outlined in black against the starry sky, every port-hole and saloon blazing with light. It was impossible to think anything could be wrong with such a leviathan, were it not for that ominous tilt downward in the bows, where the water was by now up to the lowest row of port-holes.
Rajah and I rigged them with strings and set to drawing water through the port-holes on the port side, which was not a hard job, for the swells came within a couple of feet of our hands as we held the tins outside.
Two hours later, the vessel was sunk in the water to the height of the port-holes. A terrible spectacle was presented meanwhile on the deck. Mothers pressed their children to their breasts in despair; friends exchanged embraces and bade each other farewell; some went down into the cabins that they might die without seeing the sea.
On the upper part of the long cigar-shaped iron tug is a platform in the middle of which is the "lid" by which an entrance is effected. In the fore part of the platform projects a periscope, or lookout, formed by port-holes or lenses through which an electric searchlight can throw its gleam for some distance under water in front of and on each side of the tug.
After a moment of hesitation she pushed it further open and stepped into the room. By the dim light of two port-holes she could see that the floor was strewn and piled with the contents of a broken bale of curled horse hair, of which a few untouched bales still remained against the wall.
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