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Updated: June 23, 2025
The boatswain's mate went to work without delay, seizing the poor little culprits by their loose frocks, and using a ratan without mercy. The other boys wept, clasped their hands, and fell on their knees; but in vain; the boatswain's mate only hit out at them; once in a while making them yell ten times louder than ever.
The land first discovered in this voyage was the island of Guanaia off Cape Casinas or Cape Honduras, therefore W.S.W. from Jamaica, not south. Guanaia seems to be the island named Bonaea in our maps, about ten leagues west from the isle of Ratan. A blank is left here in the edition of this voyage published by Churchill.
We each of us, I should have said, carried pieces of ratan in our hands, which against such enemies proved useful weapons, as a well-aimed blow with a ratan at even a large snake will turn it aside. Our numbers, also, kept the larger serpents and beasts of prey at a distance.
I begged that I might carry the serpent as a trophy to the camp. To do so I coiled it round a stick, and secured it with a piece of thin ratan. As I walked along, Merlin every now and then came up sniffing behind me, and seemed very much inclined to have a bite at it. We saw several more jungle cocks on our way.
Strips of bamboo are laid across, which serve as a floor. In fact, there is little difference between these houses and those built by the Burmahs and other tribes in whose countries bamboo and ratan are plentiful. The houses of Mr. Brooke and the rajah are much superior to any others, having the advantage and comfort of wooden sides and floorings.
To secure the rounds, I cut a quantity of fine ratan, or some of the smaller creeper, which answered the purpose pretty well; and to prevent them slipping, I secured from the top to the bottom a piece of ratan twined round them on both sides. My ladder, though not very sightly, was, I hoped, thus made secure.
The marines, under arms, and in full uniform, fall in at the after-part of the quarter-deck; while the ship's boys, under the master-at-arms, with his ratan in hand, muster on the forecastle. In some ships the men are sized, as it is called, the tallest being placed at the after-end, and so on down to the most diminutive, who is fixed at the extremity.
As soon as he was eight years old, his father, in order to raise a few more shillings to support his family, sent him into the streets to sell little pieces of ratan, which the people there use to beat the dust out of their clothes. Henry got about a cent and a half apiece for the sticks.
Our Dutch friend stated that they were so formed to guard its eyes from the thorns and spines which it meets with whilst searching for fallen fruits among the thickets of ratan and other spiny plants. Mr Hooker, however, said he thought they had once been of use to the animal in digging, but its mode of life having been somewhat changed, they had grown up into their present curious form.
The floors were of split bamboo, sufficiently strong to bear a person's weight, and yet giving a pleasant spring as we passed over them. They were kept in their place by long strips of ratan, passed transversely between them, much in the way of a cane-bottom chair. Over these mats were spread not so neatly made, perhaps, as those employed by the wealthy Malays, but still very well done.
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