along the temporary
rails, to their positions, and built in at once.

Each stone of this building was treated with as much care and solicitude
as if it were a living creature. After being carefully cut and
curiously formed, and conveyed to the neighbourhood of the rock, it was
hoisted out of the hold and laid on the vessel's deck, when it was
handed over to the landing-master, whose duty it became to transfer it,
by means of a combination of ropes and blocks, to the deck of the praam
boat, and then deliver it at the rock.

As the sea was seldom calm during the building operations, and
frequently in a state of great agitation, lowering the stones on the
decks of the praam boats was a difficult matter.

In the act of working the apparatus, one man was placed at each of the
guy-tackles. This man assisted also at the purchase-tackles for raising
the stones; and one of the ablest and most active of the crew was
appointed to hold on the end of the fall-tackle, which often required
all his strength and his utmost agility in letting go, for the purpose
of lowering the stone at the instant the word "lower" was given. In a
rolling sea, much depended on the promptitude with which this part of
the operation was performed. For the purpose of securing this, the man
who held the tackle placed himself before the mast in a sitting, more
frequently in a lying posture, with his feet stretched under the winch
and abutting against the mast, as by this means he was enabled to exert
his greatest strength.

The signal being given in the hold that the tackle was hooked to the
stone and all ready, every man took his post, the stone was carefully,
we might almost say tenderly, raised, and gradually got into position
over the praam boat; the right moment was intently watched, and the word
"lower" given sternly and sharply. The order was obeyed with exact
promptitude, and the stone rested on the deck of the praam boat. Six
blocks of granite having been thus placed on the boat's deck, she was
rowed to a buoy, and moored near the rock until the proper time of the
tide for taking her into one of the landing creeks.

We are thus particular in describing the details of this part of the
work, in order that the reader may be enabled to form a correct estimate
of what may be termed the minor difficulties of the undertaking.

The same care was bestowed upon the landing of every stone of the
building; and it is worthy of record, that notwithstand