wo on each side, in an iron frame,
properly inclined to give a clear lead. {195a}

Sisterhooks are troublesome things. Some much better plan as a
substitute has to be invented, but I used for their "mousings"
india-rubber rings, which answered perfectly well, and were easily
replaced at six for a penny.

Stocking and re-stocking the anchor were the only operations when I felt
the want of another hand, either to do the work at the bow or to give
that one touch to the tiller at the critical moment, which an infant
could do when near it, but which is hard for a man at a distance. The
anchors were on deck, one at each side of the bitts, and fitting securely
within the gunwale.

Two things, above all, I must try to devise for next voyage,--a cleat
that will need no bends, {195b} but hold anywhere instantly, and an
anchor-stock, self-acting in dark, rain, and wind, and without a forelock
to slip out or get jammed.

[Picture: Dashing spray]

The hatch of the well was in two parts, and one of them, a foot in
breadth, had chocks on each side, so that in rain and dashing spray it
was fixed up at an angle before me, and thus only my eyes were above it
exposed, and by moving my head down about one inch below the position
shewn in the sketch, I could see the compass and the chart. A tarpaulin
of one-faced india-rubber over the sloping board and under the horse, had
its loose folds round one of my shoulders to the weather side, so that
even in very rough water not much could get into the open well.

The main-boom had a ring working between cheeks and carrying a double
block with a single block below. To reduce the long fall of the sheet I
altered the upper block to a single one; but in the first heavy weather
afterwards it was found to be too small a purchase. The force of the
wind is underrated if you reason about it in fair weather.

The sheet block was fast to a strong, plain, copper ring, as a traveller,
and after much trouble and expense about a horse for this, trying first
an iron one, then a copper rope, and then hemp, I found that a rounded
inch bar of red iron-wood straight across and about two inches above the
bulkhead of the well, answered to perfection. {197}

The oars were stowed one on each side of the hatch combing with blades
aft, and looms chock up to the gunwale at the bows, so as to be seldom
moved by a rush of sea along the deck, and yet one or other or both could
be instantl