at the season when ships are here. The inhabitants lade and drive their
asses themselves, being very glad to be employed; for they have scarce
any other trade but this to get a penny by. The pond is not above half a
mile from the landing-place, so that the asses make a great many trips in
a day. They have a set number of turns to and fro both forenoon and
afternoon, which their owners will not exceed. At the landing-place there
lies a frape-boat, as our seamen call it, to take in the salt. It is made
purposely for this use, with a deck reaching from the stern a third part
of the boat; where there is a kind of bulkhead that rises not from the
boat's bottom but from the edge of the deck to about 2 foot in height;
all caulked very tight. The use of it is to keep the waves from dashing
into the boat when it lies with its head to the shore to take in salt:
for here commonly runs a great sea; and when the boat lies so with its
head to the shore the sea breaks in over the stern, and would soon fill
it was it not for this bulkhead, which stops the waves that come flowing
upon the deck and makes them run off into the sea on each side. To keep
the boat thus with the head to the shore and the stern to the sea there
are two strong stanchions set up in the boat, the one at the head, the
other in the middle of it, against the bulkhead, and a foot higher than
the bulkhead. There is a large notch cut in the top of each of these
stanchions big enough for a small hawser or rope to lie in; one end of
which is fastened to a post ashore, and the other to a grappling or
anchor lying a pretty way off at sea: this rope serves to haul the boat
in and out, and the stanchions serve to keep her fast, so that she cannot
swing to either side when the rope is hauled tight: for the sea would
else fill her, or toss her ashore and stave her. The better to prevent
her staving and to keep her the tighter together there are two sets of
ropes more: the first going athwart from gunwale to gunwale, which, when
the rowers benches are laid, bind the boats sides so hard against the
ends of the benches that they cannot easily fall asunder, while the