- mate who invited me on deck to look at
the "queerest craft I ever saw." Turning out in a hurry I followed him, and from the topgallant forecastle saw the proa in the act of shooting across our bows. The breeze piped at a "three-man power," for that number of lithe and swarthy lascars straddled the outrigger to windward, hanging on by their eyelids, after the manner of mariners the seas over. The sail that propelled this craft was of the sprit variety, but was made of cotton stuff and not of matting, as was the sail described in "Anson's Voyage." She darted past us, with rare velocity, throwing the spray over her crew in fine style. There were six or seven of them in the main hull of the proa, the helmsman steering with a rather long paddle. After she had cleared the ship's bows she luffed up sharp and seemed to point almost in the wind's eye, the sail sitting quite flat, unlike the sails of the ordinary "country wallah," which are, as a rule, of the baggy kind. I judged her speed at about sixteen knots—certainly not less. The mast and sprit of her sail were of bamboo, the rigging of kyar. Subsequently I had several opportunities of inspecting these proas, and subjecting them to a close examination—notably at Pointe de Galle, where the Hurkaru touched to take in cargo on her homeward voyage.
The main portion of the hull proper consists of a trunk of a tree hollowed
