Extricating waggons from quicksands, &c.
Whilst gazing at this odd landmark, Mynheer appeared; with him came a goodly staff of tall athletic sons and nephews, attended by a numerous train of native helpers. On digging for the waggon, it was found to have settled so far below the sand that when the tallest of the family stood on the tire of the wheel his shoulders were barely at the surface of the water, and Mynheer had yoked his oxen and was attempting to draw out the waggon by a horizontal strain. We forbore to offer advice which would certainly have been rejected, but retired to the house, and when one of the sons visited us after the day’s fruitless labour, we rigged a pair of miniature shears, and, letting them incline over a weight, showed how easily it might be lifted by applying a horizontal strain to cause the shears to rise to a vertical position. The result of this was that Mynheer sent up a request that, as “een groote zee-water’s men,” we would come and give him a bit of advice. We accordingly suggested that, as the sand was not firm enough to set the shear legs upon, he should cut three good-sized beams, and laying one horizontally, cut mortices in the ends, while tenons were cut on the other two to fit in them, the apex of the triangle being firmly lashed with the “reims” or thongs of softened hide, used for spanning in the oxen. The triangle was now set up, sloping somewhat over the fore-stell or carriage of the buried waggon, and one of the drag-chains was fastened to the wheel and led over the top of the shears, whence, lengthened out by the other chain and spare rope, it was bent on to the “trek-touw,” to which the oxen were already yoked. At length the cattle bent them to the yokes, the gear tightened and strained, the dissel-boom, that so long had been our beacon, began to rise, when some fastening gave way and all came down by the run; the pole, however, remaining a foot higher than it was before. A native was desired to refasten the chain; and, sticking two fingers of his left hand into his nostrils in a manner no European could imitate, he settled down below the water, and worked with his right hand only. Piece by piece the waggon was hauled out during the succeeding days, after having been three years and three days imbedded.
In exploring countries covered with dense forests or difficult to be traversed, rafts are wonderfully useful for navigating lakes and rivers, or for conveying your goods. Dr. R. Brown, commander of the expedition in Vancouver’s Island, favours us with the following note:—
Trenneled rafts.
“We travelled long distances by rafts in Vancouver’s Island, and, in order to have facilities for making them, we caused an auger (2in.) to be constructed with a ring-head instead of the usual spike with a nut, so that, by a piece of wood being put through it, a handle might be extemporised. Generally speaking we could find dry fallen cedar (Thuja gigantea, Natl.) by the borders of lakes or rivers, or if not living cotton wood (Salix Scouleriana) will do; and in fact any wood, though pine is rather too heavy and apt to get waterlogged.
“Cutting two lengths of logs, the length of the raft required, sharpening the ‘bows’ off roughly, we laid them on the ground, parallel, and as far apart as we wished them. Then two cross-pieces, composed of a log split in two, were pegged by means of the auger across near the ends, over them was built a floor of split cedar boards. Two rowlocks were pegged in here and there according to the number of rowers required, and one pair at the end for a steering oar. Oars were soon extemporised by means of the axe, and the raft moved lazily along at about one and a half or two miles an hour on a lake, but the labour was infinitely easier than working through the wood with a seventy or eighty pound load on your back.
“Sometimes we constructed even ruder rafts than these. Mr. Frederick Whymper and Mr. Ranald M’Donald once descended twenty miles of a river on a little raft composed of the boards out of an Indian’s hunting lodge, tying it together with withes of cedar twigs, which are very tough, and used by the Indians for sewing their canoes and fastening their lodge planks together. The holes they made with pistol bullets.”
Principles of raft building.
The general principle on which all rafts are or ought to be constructed is nearly the same; that is, if they are intended to be worked or to make progress through the water, as in most cases is desirable. The exceptions to this are generally when it is merely desired to float down a stream, abandoning the raft as worthless when the voyage is completed, or when produce or manufacture of any kind has to be brought down from a higher country to a lower, and, from its buoyancy it may be collected into a raft, which, on reaching its destination, may be reduced to its component parts and sold; or where, as in still more exceptional cases, it is necessary to provide floating habitations for families or small communities without reference to locomotion, which is effected by other means.
In the first and most general case, the object is to obtain sufficient carrying power with as little resistance to progression as possible; and to this end the larger spars, on which the buoyancy of the whole depends, ought to be laid parallel to, and at such a distance from, each other as seems necessary either to insure the requisite stability, to give sufficient room on deck, or to suit the length of those that are to be used as cross-beams; but they should never be laid close together so as to present a broad united surface to be forced through the water, nor even so close as to convert that portion of fluid between them into dead water to be dragged like a solid body with the raft. We would say, if there be two or more spars of equal size, let the interval between them be at least three times as broad as their diameter, and generally let the width of your raft be not more than one-sixth of its length. If you have only one large spar, let that form the centre, or, as it may be called, the keel, and let the smaller ones, either singly or lashed together in bundles of convenient size, be laid parallel to it at proper distances on either side. Endeavour as much as possible to keep your cross-beams as high above the water as possible, for if these are submerged, their sides will offer as much resistance to your progress as if the whole raft had been filled up with solid logs. On this account, therefore, it would be advisable to lash or pin on the top of each of the main beams either a smaller one to increase its height, or short pieces at intervals, as chocks on which to lay the cross-beams.