These screw-bolts, seventy in number, as well as the copper nails, cost
us dearly, but wooden pegs, with which also she was fastened, cost only
the labour of being made. The lashings, too, that we used here and there
about the frame of the cabin, cost next to nothing, being made from the
fibrous bark of trees, which could be had in abundance by the stripping
of it off. So, taking it by and large, our materials were not expensive,
the principal item being the timber, which cost about three cents per
superficial foot, sawed or hewed. Rosewood, ironwood, cedar or mahogany,
were all about the same price and very little in advance of common wood;
so of course we selected always the best, the labour of shaping being
least, sometimes, where the best materials were used.
These various timbers and fastenings, put together as best we could
shape and join them, made a craft sufficiently strong and seaworthy to
withstand all the bufferings on the main upon which, in due course, she
was launched.
The hull being completed, by various other contrivances and makeshifts
in which, sometimes, the "wooden blacksmith" was called in to assist,
and the mother of invention also lending a hand, fixtures were made
which served as well on the voyage as though made in a dockyard and at
great cost.
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