AN ABORTIVE START 13

fore part of the steel deck will sit the oarsmen, or, to be

strictly nautical, the rowers.

Three sails, two triangular and one square, will help us

along when the wind is favourable. True, this rig-out of sails on a vessel the size of ours is not exactly what is generally seen in the Navy, but what does that matter in

the wilds of Africa, with no companions and no engineers

to make fun of my innovation ? How well it will sound,

too, will it not, when we reach their territories if the English

telegraph to Europe, " A French three-master has descended

the Niger from Timbuktu ! "

All this finally settled, the next thing to do was to divide the boat into sections. The problem was, how to manage to do this so that these sections could be carried on the

heads of our porters, no one of them weighing more than

from about 55 to 66 lbs. This is really all we can expect

of a black porter who was not brought up in the ship-

building trade. To begin with, I divide my boat longitudinally from bow to stern into two equal sections, which are afterwards sub-divided. These two sections are to be bolted on to a

sheet of steel which will serve as a keel. The joints are of leather. The heaviest piece, that is to say, the stern, weighs some 81 lbs., but two porters can carry it together.

This flat-bottomed craft of ours will be steered by means of a long rudder, the wheel of which is placed at the threshold of my cabin, so that I shall have it close at hand. On my cabin roof is the steering compass, and the tent to protect us in the day, which tent is made of brown and

red striped cloth with a scalloped edge. We fancy ourselves on the beach of Normandy when we are in it. The roof of my cabin will serve me as a table on which to work at my hydrographical observations.

The Davoust was just big enough to hold us all. She