Starting immediately after breakfast, taking with us the carpenter’s tool-chest, an ample supply of fruit and food, and of course Kit—who could not possibly be permitted to roam Eden at large and be deprived of our company for a whole week—the voyage was accomplished without incident, and we arrived at the wreck early in the afternoon. We found the old craft in every respect just as we had left her, excepting that her cabins, having been securely closed during our absence, were distinctly stuffy. This was soon remedied, however, by throwing back the companion slide and opening the skylight and all the scuttles, after which we filled in the remainder of the afternoon in making up the beds in the state-rooms and preparing generally for our week’s sojourn. When all was done an hour or two of daylight still remained, which I utilised by preparing a sketch of my proposed punt. She was to be five feet long on her bottom, with a rising floor two feet long at each end, making her nine feet long over all, with a beam of four feet, and sufficient freeboard to enable her to carry two men safely in the tranquil waters of the inner channels. Being flat-bottomed, flat-sided, and square-ended, she was an easy model to build; there were no planks to be bent, and as the wreck afforded abundant material, and as we did not aim at such refinement of finish as was included in a coat of paint, we completed our task during the afternoon of the fifth day, even to putting her over the side into the water to “take up.”
Leaving the wreck immediately after breakfast the next morning, with the punt in tow, we arrived at our anchorage in Eden Cove about half an hour before sunset, almost the whole of the passage being a beat to windward, while the towage of the punt further retarded our progress. We, however, found everything just as we had left it; and, although I think we enjoyed the little change involved in living on the wreck, we were glad to find ourselves once more “at home”, particularly Kit, whose rambles had been restricted to the deck of the ship, and who displayed his delight at returning to the wider spaces of Eden by starting off at full gallop the moment his pads touched the sand, rushing out of sight and appearing no more until we reached the house, where we discovered the beggar squatted on the top steps of the veranda awaiting our arrival.
On the following morning, after breakfast, Billy and I got the boat under way and, with the punt in tow, sailed for Cliff Island. Running the boat in on the beach, we were quickly joined by Bowata, who informed us that four days earlier the apes, to the number of nine, had attempted another raid which, he proudly added, had been successfully repulsed, but at the expense of many lost arrows; and he hinted pretty broadly that a further gift of those very useful missiles would be highly appreciated. Whereupon I informed him that I intended to do even better than continue to furnish him and his people with bows and arrows—I was going to present them with means whereby they might procure the materials wherewith to make for themselves as many of those weapons as they pleased; and therewith I led him down to the beach and directed his attention to the punt.
Bowata looked at the craft and grunted his approval of her; but it was evident that he had not the remotest notion of how she was to be the means of providing him with bows and arrows; so, casting off her painter, Billy and I stepped into her and, paddling along close to the beach, showed the savage in a very practical manner how to handle her. Next, landing Billy and taking Bowata into the punt with me, I handed him a paddle, and, first directing his attention to the manner in which I manipulated my own, invited him to try his hand. He proved an apt pupil, and within the hour was able to manoeuvre the punt single-handed. Then, beaching the punt and securing her to a stake firmly driven into the beach, I invited Bowata and his son to enter the sailing boat, informing them that, having given them the means to navigate the channels, I now proposed to show them where to obtain the wherewithal from which to make as many bows and arrows as they desired.
The pair entered the boat with a distinct suggestion of trepidation; they could understand the punt, apparently, but they had evidently not yet grasped the fact that it was the wind that endowed the boat with mobility, and they seemed to regard her with distrust, as a magical craft that might as likely as not fly away with them, never to return. They were under the impression, it presently appeared, that we intended to turn them adrift to shift for themselves as best they could, but when I explained that Billy and I intended to go with them their fears vanished, and they seated themselves contentedly enough in the bottom of the boat in the places which I indicated. It was perfectly clear that not only they but also their fellow-savages regarded the expedition upon which we were embarking as a quite notable adventure, for they assembled in force to witness our departure, admiration and apprehension in about equal proportions being the dominant expressions upon the countenances of those we left behind us as the boat glided smoothly and rapidly away from the shore.
I took our guests, first of all, to West Island, upon which grew the trees from which I had obtained the wood found to be suitable for the making of bows; and, having directed Bowata’s attention to the characteristic peculiarities of the trees, as distinguishing them from others, I shinned aloft into one of them, carrying with me a small hatchet that had come from the wreck, and proceeded to lop off about a dozen suitable branches which, with an ample supply of thorns to form arrow-heads, were duly placed aboard the boat. Then, shoving off again, we proceeded by way of the North-west Channel round to Shark Bay, in North Island, where, running the boat into the swamp, we cut a goodly stock of reeds from which to make shafts for the arrows. These two tasks, including the time occupied in sailing from place to place and returning, occupied the entire day, so that it was already dusk when, having landed Bowata and his son, and our cargo of branches and reeds, we arrived back at our own island of Eden.
The next day Billy and I again sailed for Cliff Island, where, with an old sheath knife as a tool, I showed Bowata how to make bows and arrows, at the same time presenting him with the hatchet, the knife, and a quantity of cord from which to make bow-strings. We spent three days with the natives, supervising their work of making bows and arrows; and by the time that they had used up all the material with which I had supplied them, they had attained to a degree of proficiency that I felt would justify me in leaving them henceforth to their own devices.