[156] Frenchmen have a trick of anchoring thus to escape a breeze. We have seen them anchor on the African coast merely to avoid a hard-looking cloud, whereas the real danger was in anchoring there at all.
[159a] See Frontispiece.
[159b] We shall hear of this pinch again further on.
[160] This latter construction is found to be very convenient, because the cargo is at one end of the vessel and the machinery, and paddle-wheels, and steering apparatus are all at the other end, so that orders can be readily given to both by the captain. The “Express” Company on the Seine has sixty of these steamers.
[161] It was, however, only an adaptation of the same principle I had used in Swedish lakes, when my course was towards a bright sun so dazzling in the water that I invented the plan of covering my eyes with my straw hat, and steering the canoe by the bright reflection of the sun on its cedar deck, which was of course by no means so unpleasant as the beams of light glancing from the water itself. Surely it would not be impossible to make the needle of a mariner’s compass itself steer the ship at least within half a point. The motion of the needle could connect one or the other of two electro currents, and so set in instant action a powerful purchase to act on the tiller.
[171] First thoughts of people and of countries are more striking, they are only by chance at all true. I recollect asking an American, after his visit to the English House of Lords, what struck his attention most; and he said, “Their lordships don’t seem to brush their hair.” Another clever traveller, from the same land of our cousins, was asked what he noticed of our manners in London, and he replied, “I observe it is the fashion here, when a gentleman sees his friend on the other side of Pall Mall, he shakes his umbrella at him and calls out, ‘D’ye do, old fellow?’”
[188] The Rob Roy came there again next summer, up the Thames, and by the canal, and the river Wey and the Arun, and so to Southsea, with fifteen canoes, five dogs and a cockatoo—such fun.
[192] After so much experience of the yawl, tried in all points in all kinds of wind and weather, it may well be supposed that numerous improvements had been noted in my book as desirable. These, however, we need not here particularise, as the various descriptions given at intervals through this book shew what the Rob Roy is in her latest and best arrangements.
[195a] The fall of each halyard was coiled and put under the taut part. A small coil looks neatest, but the fall of it is sure to kink if coiled close, being wet and dry ten times in a day. Before nearing harbour, or in preparation to lower sail “handsomely,” I found it well to cast the coil loose on the hatch, else a kink would catch in the leading sheave.
[195b] This was forthwith invented and used and shewn to hundreds of people. After some time the very identical thing was patented, and it is now used by thousands. Most of our canoes have these “tumbling cleats,” and they are used for the cords of blinds, &c., in many houses, including my own.