I might possibly make a boat capable of carrying all I wanted to put into it, but as I could neither move the water up to the boat, nor the boat down to the water, for all the service I wanted of it, even if the island contained a tree large enough, I might just as well leave it untouched.
Still I would not altogether abandon my favourite project. I thought of the willows that grew on the island, and fancied I could make a framework by twisting them strongly together, and stretching seal-skins over them. I laboured at this for several weeks, exercising all my ingenuity and no slight stock of patience, to create an object with which I was but imperfectly acquainted.
I did succeed at last in putting together something in a remote degree resembling the boat that brought part of the whaler’s crew to the island and had taken them away, but it was not a quarter the size and was so light that I could carry it without much difficulty to the landing I had constructed on the cliff. When I came to try its capabilities, I found it terribly lopsided—it soon began to leak, and in fact it exhibited so many faults, that I was forced to drag it again on shore, and take it to pieces.
I called in Mrs Reichardt to my assistance, and though at first she seemed averse to the experiment, she gave me a great deal of information respecting the structure of small boats, and the method of waterproofing leather and other fabrics. I attended carefully to all she said, and commenced rebuilding with more pretensions to art.
I now made a strong framework, tolerably sharp at each end, and as nearly as possible resembling a keel at the bottom. I covered this on both sides with pieces of strong cloth saturated with grease from the carcases of birds, and then covered the whole with well-dried seal-skins, which I had made impervious to wet. The inside of the boat nearest the water I neatly covered with pieces of dry bark, over which I fixed some boards, which had floated to the island from wrecked ships. Finally I put in some benches to sit on, and then fancied I had done everything that was necessary.
I soon got her into the fishing-pool, and was delighted to find that she floated capitally—but I still had a great deal to do. I had made neither oars to propel her through the water, nor sail to carry her through the waves, when rowing was impossible. I remembered the whaler’s spare oars and mizen, but they were too large; nevertheless, they served me as models to work upon, and in time I made a rough pair of paddles or oars, which, though rudely fashioned, I hoped would answer the purpose pretty well.
The next difficulty was how to use the oars, and I made many awkward attempts before I ascertained the proper method of proceeding. Again my companion, on whom nothing which had once passed before her eyes had passed in vain, showed me how the boat should be managed.
In a short time I could row about the pool with sufficient dexterity to turn the boat in any direction I required, and I then took Nero as a passenger, and he seemed to enjoy the new gratification with a praiseworthy decorum; till, when I was trying to turn the boat round, the movement caused him to attempt to shift his quarters, which he did with so little attention to the build of our vessel, that in one moment she was capsized, and in the next we were swimming about in the pool with our vessel bottom upwards.
As she was so light, I soon righted her, and found that she had received no injury, and appeared to be perfectly water-tight.