On These Another Row Of
Shorter Trees Are Laid Across, And Fastened Down By Wooden Pegs.
From,
this double raft or bottom they raise a raft of ten feet high, by means
of upright posts,
Which support two layers of thick trees laid across
each other, like our piles of wood, but not so close as in the bottom of
the float; these being formed only at the ends and sides, the inner part
being left hollow. In this hollow, at the height of four feet from the
floor of the raft, they lay a deck or floor of small poles close
together, serving as the floor or deck of another room; and above this,
at the same height, they lay just such another sparred deck. The lower
room serves for the hold, in which they stow ballast, and water casks or
jars. The second room serves for the seamen and what belongs to them.
Above all the goods are stowed, as high as they deem fit, but seldom
exceeding the height of ten feet. Some space is left vacant behind for
the steersman, and before for the kitchen, especially in long voyages,
for in these strange vessels they will venture to make voyages of five
or six hundred leagues.
[Footnote 162: I suspect this to be a mistaken translation of
barco-longo, long barks, or rafts rather, as the subsequent
description indicates. - E]
In navigating these vessels, they use a very large rudder, with one mast
in the middle of the machine, on which they have a large sail, like our
west country barges on the river Thames. As these machines can only sail
before the wind, they are only fit for these seas, where the wind blows
constantly one way, seldom varying above a point or two in the whole
voyage from Lima to Panama. If, when near Panama, they happen to meet a
north-west wind, as sometimes happens, they must drive before it till it
changes, merely using their best endeavours to avoid the shore, for they
will never sink at sea. Such vessels carry sixty or seventy tons of
merchandise, as wine, oil, flour, sugar, Quito cloth, soap, dressed
goats skins, &c. They are navigated by three or four men only; who, on
their arrival at Panama, sell both the goods and vessel at that place,
as they cannot go back again with them against the trade-wind. The
smaller fishing barks of this construction are much easier managed.
These go out to sea at night with the land-wind, and return to the shore
in the day with the sea-breeze; and such small barco longos are used
in many parts of America, and in some places in the East Indies. On the
coast of Coromandel they use only one log, or sometimes two, made of
light wood, managed by one man, without sail or rudder, who steers the
log with a paddle, sitting with his legs in the water.[163]
[Footnote 163: On the coast of Coromandel these small rafts are named
Catamarans, and are employed for carrying letters or messages between
the shore and the ships, through the tremendous surf which continually
breaks on that coast.
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