Now by this time we had the canvas nailed down to the gunnels around our boat, after which we spread the boat-cover over it, lacing it down to the brass studs beneath the gunnel.

Then, the bo'sun whipped in his oar under the cover, and, reaching forward, drew the canvas aft, so that it covered the entire boat, and he held it down against the gunnel upon the starboard side, shouting in my ear to do likewise upon the larboard.

And so for the space of maybe a full minute the boat quivered and shook most vilely, so that she seemed like to have been shaken in pieces, and from a dozen places between the gunnel and the covering canvas, the water spurted in upon us.

From the time that I relieved the bo'sun, until midnight, I sat upon the gunnel of the boat, with the steering oar under my arm, and watched and listened, most full of a sense of the strangeness of the seas into which we had come.

Fortunately for him he was no more than some thirty yards from the shore at this time, else he had never come to it in this life; for the next moment the moving brown mass beneath the boat shot out a great tentacle and the oar was torn out of Job's hands with such power as to throw him right over on to the starboard gunnel of the boat.

It was a little before the evening came down upon the island, that the bo'sun ceased work; and, after that, he called to the men, who, having made an end of their fuel carrying, were standing near, to place the full breakerswhich we had not thought needful to carry to the new camp on account of their weightunder the upturned boat, some holding up the gunnel whilst the others pushed them under.

On asking Mr. Gunnel to what use I should put this fayr Libellus, he did suggest my making it a kinde of family register, wherein to note the more important of our domestic passages, whether of joy or griefemy father's journies and absencesthe visits of learned men, theire notable sayings, etc.

To-day I gave this book to Mr. Gunnel in mistake for my Latin exercise!

He spent the best part of the morning in our Academia, discussing the pronunciation of Latin and Greek with Mr. Gunnel, and speaking of his labours on his Greek and Latin Testament, which he prays may be a blessing to all Christendom.

The canoe was nearly new, it measured eighteen feet in length, and two in breadth, and would easily carry eight persons; the sides were supported by two poles fastened to the gunwhale by strips of a climbing plant (Flagellaria indica), that grows abundantly hereabouts, and with which also the ends of the canoe were neatly, and even tastefully joined; the poles were spanned together on either side by rope constructed of strips of bark.

When sailing home one day with a wet sheet, a flowing main, and a breeze following far abaft, we espied a boat submerged to the gunwhale floating out to sea.