I made a discovery to-day which at first rather alarmed me.

The two ports, or openings, through which the tillers enter from the lateral rudders are not more than three or four feet above the surface of the water, which thus has a free entrance into the vessel.

I of course had imagined that this open space from one side to the other was separated from the hold by a water-tight bulkhead, so that a sea entering might wash out at the further side, and do no more harm than give the steersmen a drenching.
To my surprise end dismay, however, I find that it is completely open to the hold, so that half-a-dozen seas rolling in on a stormy night would nearly, or quite, swamp us.

Think of a vessel going to sea for a month with two holes, each a yard square, into the hold, at three feet above the water-line,-holes, too, which cannot possibly be closed! But our captain says all praus are so; and though he acknowledges the danger, "he does not know how to alter it--the people are used to it; he does not understand praus so well as they do, and if such a great alteration were made, he should be sure to have difficulty in getting a crew!" This proves at all events that praus must be good sea-boats, for the captain has been continually making voyages in them for the last ten years, and says he has never known water enough enter to do any harm.
Dec.25th.-Christmas-day dawned upon us with gusts of wind, driving rain, thunder and lightning, added to which a short confused sea made our queer vessel pitch and roll very uncomfortably.

About nine o'clock, however, it cleared up, and we then saw ahead of us the fine island of Bouru, perhaps forty or fifty miles distant, its mountains wreathed with clouds, while its lower lands were still invisible.