The witness was examined under oath.

[H]e wrote the chit for a date after the eleventh Friday, in the month of Rabi-al-awwal, honed his black cane as sharp as a buckwheat seed, and left for home, taking with him all the merchandise he wanted.

Rafts, or canoes, or “catamarans,” are still occasionally improvised by travellers or explorers in primitive parts of New Zealand, e.g. by Haast, who reports constructing “catamarans” of dead trees when flax-sticks were not obtainable.

The resolution of the images obtained by this American probe [Messenger] will depend on its altitude [above Mercury] at any one time: about ten meters at perigee (200km altitude), but only one 1 km at apogee (15000km).