Chapter 9 Row,row Your Boat.

As a child we have learned that nursery song,"Row,row your boat,gently down the stream,Merrily,merrily,Life is but a Dream".Ah,that was it.Francis and Fabian were always by the side of the river most mornings.

One fine morning they saw the usual Malay fisherman chaining his boat or "sampan" to a nearby mangrove tree and then left."Sampan" as they so called because it was supposed to be made of three pieces of planks as in Chinese.The small boat could have other name but no one bother to use it but only "sampan".

Francis suggested that they go up into that small boat for a feel of it.So Fabian climbed into the back of that small boat.Francis followed but his entry made the small boat wobbled.He took fright but slowly steady himself.


But alas that small boat cannot cater for two persons.An unwanted move in that boat and the boat will over turned.The boat actually meant for catching prawns and can take one person only.With both sitting in that boat the water level almost reached the brink of the lowest point of its sides.

Seeing the boat steady Fabian took the oar and began to row.They could not have gone far because the boat was chained to a tree.The rowing caused the small boat to move around that same spot only.

Francis sensing that the boat was not moving away stood up.As he stood up the small boat tilted to one side.And Francis shouted in fear,"Boat capsizing,abandon boat!". Fabian had no time to reply and followed the boat as it overturned.Both brothers were in deep water but being good swimmers they recovered their composure and quickly swam to the river bank for safety.

Because were swimmers no harm came to them and they swam back to the river bank for safety.The boat had overturned and they could reversed it back,so they waited for the tide to recede.

When it was low tide they overturned the boat back to its normal position on the muddy river bank.When high tide again came the boat was a float as usual so no damage was done.Nothing a miss.The too gave the boat a good cleaning.

Later in the day the Malay fisherman came and was pleased to see his boat in placed.The boys greeted him and inquired as to when he will begin his job in catching prawns.The Malay fisherman told the next morning.

Out of curiosity both brothers went to find out how the fisherman catch his prawns.It was very early the morning about 4.oo a.m.both boys waited for the Malay man to begin.

First the Malay Fisherman put a very bright light in front of the boat,following he sat be sat at the back of the boat and started to row slowly.As he rowed slowly in the river,amazingly some prawns began jumping towards the bright light and landed into the boat.

Once inside the boat these prawns cannot jumped any more and thus cannot escaped.The boat man continued rowing until the break of dawn and sufficient prawns were caught this way.Fabian and Francis could only followed part of the way on the river bank.That was sufficient for them to understand how to catch fresh water prawns the "kampong" way.