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It is a hall, with a floor of solid earth and a roof of thin laths caulked and plastered with mud. The floor is covered with a thick bed of feathers, which have been gathered in the markets and restaurants of Pekin, without much regard to their cleanliness. There is an immense quilt of thick felt the exact size of the hall, and raised and lowered by means of mechanism.
Then followed a busy time, the carpenter and his mates stripping off the copper and using their saws hour after hour as long as the tide left the leak bare, while after working as long as was possible, pieces of new thin plank were temporarily nailed on over the now much-enlarged opening, which was carefully caulked and all made as secure as possible.
The planks were rough-hewn by the hatchet, and caulked with the moss which grew in long streamers on the trees. The cordage was Indian made, and the sails were patched together from shirts and bedclothes. Never before had men thought to dare the ocean waves in so crazy a craft.
Then there is another leak to be caulked, another rat-hole to be nailed up, and so the game goes on. Hitherto I think I may say we have managed to hold our own!" The Chief stopped to light another cigarette. Then he resumed but in a lower voice. "During the past month, Okewood," he said, "a new organization has cropped up.
If, however, this should be the case, a little putty or pitch will remedy the difficulty. The "dug-out" may be constructed of any size, and of any desired shape, but the above is the usual type. When leaks or cracks occur, they may be caulked with hemp, and smeared with pitch, which will render them thoroughly waterproof.
I began to cast about me, to examine the size of the bunk, which I found to be narrow, and plainly at some distance from the deck, for I laid hold upon one of the rough beams above me. By its curvature I knew it to be a knee, and thus I came to the caulked sides of the vessel, and for the first time heard the rattling thud and swish of water on the far side of it.
By the end of five months the hull was planked and decked, and all felt very proud of the work. It was caulked with oakum obtained from some of the least serviceable of the ropes of the brig, dipped in a resin that they found oozing from some trees.
On their way the crews insisted on deposing the pilot, Cavalho, who had never been liked, and in his stead they chose Espinosa as Captain-General, with Sebastian del Cano under him. Finding a commodious port, with abundance of fresh water and fuel, they hove down their ships and caulked them. This occupied them forty days.
The latter, large enough to contain forty men and upwards, were made of planks laboriously split from the trunks of trees with sharp stones, for want of better implements, fastened together with cocoa threads, and well caulked. The value they set on our axes and nails may therefore be easily imagined. Like all islanders, they are expert seamen, but especially dexterous in swimming and diving.
The difficulty was next to obtain boats. The fishermen, finding that the strangers were to be supplied with fish by the king's order, ran away, though the cows they had brought furnished the travellers with food. At length five boats, composed of five planks lashed together and caulked with rags, were forthcoming.
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