e
end, and I saw him laugh as he turned away. But so it was, that in the
extremity of my mortification I gave up generalship and bastion-building
for the time; though, alas! my next amusement must have worn in the eyes
of my youthful compeers as suspicious an aspect as either.

My friend of the cave had lent me what I had never seen before--a fine
quarto edition of Anson's Voyages, containing the original prints (my
father's copy had only the maps); among the others, Mr. Brett's
elaborate delineation of that strangest of vessels, a proa of the
Ladrone Islands. I was much struck by the singularity of the
construction of a barque that, while its head and stern were exactly
alike, had sides that totally differed from each other, and that, with
the wind upon the beam, outsailed, it was said, all other vessels in the
world; and having the command of the little shop in which my Uncle Sandy
made occasional carts and wheelbarrows when unemployed abroad, I set
myself to construct a miniature proa, on the model given in the print,
and succeeded in fabricating a very extraordinary proa indeed. While its
lee side was perpendicular as a wall, its windward one, to which there
was an outrigger attached, resembled that of a flat-bottomed boat; head
and stern were exactly alike, so as to fit each for performing in turn
the part of either; a moveable yard, which supported the sail, had to be
shifted towards the end converted into the stern for the time, at each
tack; while the sail itself--a most uncouth-looking thing--formed a
scalene triangle. Such was the vessel--some eighteen inches long or
so--with which I startled from their propriety the mimic navigators of a
horse-pond in the neighbourhood--all very masterly critics in all sorts
of barques and barges known on the Scottish coast. According to
Campbell,

"'Twas a thing beyond
Description wretched: such a wherry,
Perhaps, ne'er ventured on a pond,
Or crossed a ferry."

And well did my fellows appreciate its extreme ludicrousness. It was
certainly rash to "venture" it on this especial "pond;" for, greatly to
the damage of the rigging, it was fairly pelted off, and I was sent to
test elsewhere its sailing qualities, which were, as I ascertained, not
very remarkable after all. And thus, after a manner so unworthy, were my
essays in strategy and barque-building received by a censorious age,
that judged ere it knew. Were I sentimental, which l