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Their canoes were neatly made, and of various sizes, with an out-rigger to balance them. I sent the carpenter of the Sirius on shore, to examine the different kinds of timber; he reported to me, that he found one tree which was hard, and had something like the appearance of ebony, but was not quite so black; all the others he tried were soft and spongy, like the palm or cabbage tree.
When the breeze freshens so much as to lift the weight higher than the natives like, one, and sometimes two of them, walk out on the horizontal spars, so as to add their weight to that of the out-rigger. In order to enable them to accomplish this purpose in safety, a "man rope," about breast high, extends over each of the spars from the mast to the backstays.
The timbers, of which it was partly composed, were fastened much in the same way as those of our little boat were put together; but the part that seemed most curious to us was a sort of out-rigger, or long plank, which was attached to the body of the canoe by means of two stout cross beams.
The snow whirled in little eddies and made its way through the crevices at the junction of our sleigh-boot with the hood. I wrapped a blanket in front of my face for special protection, and soon managed to fall asleep. The sleigh poising on a runner and out-rigger, caused the doctor to roll against me during the first hour of my slumber, and made me dream that I was run over by a locomotive.
The boat we possess is really a badly-constructed catamaran, without a sail, and minus the out-rigger which alone renders it safe for the shortest voyage." "Wy didn't you say that sooner, mister?" put in Coke. "If some of these jokers knew wot sort of craft it was, mebbe it wouldn't 'ave needed a shove in the stommick to bring Hans Olsen to heel." "I am sorry," said De Sylva.
He comforted himself with the knowledge that no agent was able to absorb every primitive skill, and Karara's people had explored the Pacific in out-rigger canoes hardly more stable than their present vessel, navigating by currents and stars. Smothering his feeling of helplessness and the slow anger that roused in him, the Terran busied himself with study of a sort.
The savages were very kind to me, and one of them held me up seated on the out-rigger; they washed my wound with sea-water, sucked it, tore my pocket-handkerchief to make a bandage, and as soon as we landed, squeezed the juice of some herb into it. We sailed very quickly, and passed the place where we had landed in the morning.
As soon as these changes have been made, away spins the little fairy bark on her new course, but always keeping the same side, or that on which the out-rigger is placed to windward. It will be easily understood that the pressure of the sail has a tendency to lift the weight at the extremity of the out-rigger above the surface of the water.
It is placed so near the extremity of the ship, that the stay, which forms its only support in the forward direction, cannot be attached to the body of the vessel, without making so very small an angle with the mast as would divest it of nearly all its character as a supporter. To remedy this, the bowsprit has been devised, chiefly as an out-rigger for the fore-stay.
The out-rigger, which is always kept to windward, acting by its weight at the end of so long a lever, prevents the vessel from turning over by the pressure of the sail; or, should the wind shift suddenly, so as to bring the sail aback, the buoyancy of the floating log would prevent the canoe from upsetting on that side by retaining the out-rigger horizontal.
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