64 CRUISE IN THE SOUTHERN CHINA SEA. 



pect. On leaving, the hand-camera was brought into play 

 for the first time and all the juveniles among' our escort fled 

 screaming. 



The little community appeared to be very well off and was 

 one of the few places remarkable for the absence of the ubiquitous 

 Chinaman, a solitary trader of which race seemed to have been 

 recently starved out. On the shores of the harbour twenty to 

 thirty schooners of local construction were drawn up: these 

 seemed to be owned by the villagers in general, and with them 

 all the trade was done and all the produce shipped from time to 

 time to Singapore direct. 



JShip-building bulked large as an industry of the village and 

 we saw half a dozen or more hulls from thirty to forty feet in 

 length, in all stages of construction. These vessel are built of 

 locally grown chengai and merbau and are fastened with tree- 

 nails throughout. Each seemed to be the work of about a 

 couple of men in partnership and takes two years or so to complete. 

 A few frames are first set up and completely planked and after- 

 wards the other ribs are fitted in until sufficient strength is 

 attained. It was said that a 35 foot craft (10-tonner) could be 

 purchased all complete for $o50, and although perhaps their 

 lines were capable of some improvement they were fine roomy 

 little boats strongly built of throughly sound material. The 

 local canoe, however, was a thing of beauty: strongly built of 

 two prettily contrasting white and brown hardwoods without 

 a single nail, with upward-projecting stem and stern and gaudily 

 painted bird's-head bracket on the bow to support the lowered sail 

 and mast, it was as workmanlike as it washandsome. The sail was 

 a square cotton lug slung by the middle of the yard and set with 

 the forward end of the boom snubbed down to the lee-bow well 

 forward. 



Having sent the Dato a photograph of the "Terrapin" we 

 received a call one evening from him and his understudy to 

 acknowledge the picture and to obtain a little medicina 

 Amongst other things he told us how in his boyhood the village 

 suffered the last attack from pirates and how all the inhabitants 

 were driven out by the raiders to a hill at the back of the island 

 where they built a fort of refuge. In those days there were 

 only about a hundred people on the group. 



h 



Jour. Straits Branc 



