As we approach the Arctic regions, the dug-out and bark canoes are replaced by canoes of skin and wicker. As we have already seen, in the case of the bow, and other arts of savages, vegetable materials supply the wants of man in southern and equatorial regions, whilst animal materials supply their place in the north.
The origin of skin coverings has been already suggested when speaking of bark canoes. The accidental dropping of a skin bottle into the water might suggest the use of such vessels as a means of recovering the harpoon, which, as I have already shown elsewhere, was almost universally used for fishing in the earliest stages of culture. The Esquimaux lives with the harpoon and its attached bladder almost continually by his side. The Esquimaux kayak, Nos. 1253 and 1254 of my collection, in which he traverses the ocean, although admirable in its workmanship, and, like all the works of the Esquimaux, ingenious in construction, is in principle nothing more than a large, pointed bladder, similar to that which is lashed to the harpoon at its side; the man in this case occupying the opening which, in the bladder, is filled by the wooden pin that serves for a cork.
This is, I believe, a very primitive form of vessel, although there can be no doubt that many links in the history of its development have been lost. Unlike the dug-out canoe, such a fragile contrivance as the wicker canoe perishes quickly, and no direct evidence of its ancestry can be traced at the present time. It is only by means of survivals that we can build up the past history of its development; and these are, for the most part, wanting.
The skin of an animal, flayed off the body with but one incision, served, as I have elsewhere shown, a variety of purposes: from it the bellows was derived, the bagpipes, water-vessels, and pouches of various kinds; and, filled with air, it served the purpose of a float. Steinitz, in his History of the Ship, gives an illustration of an inflated ox skin, which in India is used to cross rivers; the owner riding upon the back of the animal and paddling with his hands, as if it had been a living ox.
In the Assyrian sculptures there are numerous illustrations representing men floating upon skins of this kind, which they clasp with the left hand, like the tree trunks, already mentioned, that are used by the American Indians, and swim with the right. Layard says this manner of crossing rivers is still practised in Mesopotamia. He also describes the raft, composed of a number of such floats, made of the skins of sheep flayed off with as few incisions as possible; a square framework of poplar beams is placed over a number of these, and tied together with osier and other twigs. The mouths of the sheep-skins are placed upwards, so that they can be opened and refilled by the raft-men. On these rafts the merchandise is floated down the river to Baghdad; the materials are then disposed of and the skins packed on mules, to return for another voyage. On the Nile similar rafts are used, the skins being supplanted by earthen pots, which, like the skins on the Euphrates, serve only a temporary purpose, and after the voyage down the river are disposed of in the bazaars.
This mode of floating upon skins I should conjecture to be of northern origin, and to be practised chiefly by nomadic races; but we find it employed on the Morbeya, in Morocco, by the Moors, who no doubt had it from the East. It is thus described by Lempriere, in 1789. A raft is formed of eight sheep-skins filled with air, and tied together with small cords; a few slender poles are laid over them, to which they are fastened, and that is the only means used at Buluane to convey travellers, with their baggage, over the river. As soon as the raft is loaded, a man strips, jumps into the water, and swims with one hand, whilst he pulls the raft after him with the other; another swims and pushes behind. This reminds us of the custom of the Gran Chaco Indians of South America, who, in crossing rivers, use a square boat or tub of bull’s hide, called pelota. It is attached by a rope to the tail of a horse, which swims in front; or the rope is taken in the mouth of an expert swimmer.
I have not traced the distribution of these rafts of inflated skins as continuously as, I have no doubt, they might be traced amongst nomadic and pastoral races, moving with their flocks and herds, the skins of which would be employed in this way; nor have I been able to trace the connexion which, I have no doubt, existed between the inflated skin and the open ‘curragh’ of wicker covered with skins. Where one is found, the other is often found with it. Herodotus describes the boats used by the people who came down the river to Babylon, and says they are constructed in Armenia, and in the parts above Assyria, thereby connecting them with the north. ‘The ribs of these vessels,’ he says, ‘are formed of willow boughs and branches, and covered externally with skin. They are round, like a shield, there being no distinction between head and stern. They line the bottom with reeds and straw, and taking on board merchandise, chiefly palm wine, float down the stream. The boats have two oars, one to each man: one pulls and the other pushes. They are of different dimensions, some having a single ass on board and others several. On their arrival at Babylon the boatmen dispose of their goods, and offer for sale the ribs and straw; they then load the asses with the skins, and return with them to Armenia, where they construct new boats’—just as is now done with the inflated skins of the rafts at Baghdad.
In the Pictorial Bible an illustration is given from the Sassanian sculptures at Takht-i-Bostan of several of these round vessels, probably of wicker, covered with skins. In one of these the principal figure carries a composite bow, which, as I have elsewhere shown, is of northern origin. Mr. Layard discovered in Nimroud a sculpture in which one of these boats is represented. It is round, like those described by Herodotus; back and stern alike; carrying two people, one of whom pulls and the other pushes; and in the same sculpture are represented men swimming on the inflated sheep-skins. He says that these same round vessels are still used at Baghdad, built of boughs and timber covered with skins, over which bitumen is smeared to render it more water-tight. [Hamilton] also speaks of the same vessels (of reeds and bitumen) on the Euphrates, at the commencement of the eighteenth century.
On the Cavery, in Mysore, Buchanan, in 1800, describes ferry-boats that are called donies, which are circular baskets covered with leather; but whether these vessels, like the composite bow used in the same region, can be traced to a northern origin I have not the means of determining, nor have I as yet sufficient materials to enable me to ascertain whether such vessels are employed in the north of Asia at the present time. What the inflated skin is to these circular vessels, the kayak is to the baidar of the Esquimaux. Throughout the whole region occupied by this race, these two kinds of vessels are used, differing only in minute varieties of detail in the different localities. According to Dr. King, whose valuable paper, ‘On the Industrial Arts of the Esquimaux,’ was published in the first volume of the Journal of the Ethnological Society (1848), the varieties of the kayak in the different localities consist merely in the elevation and shape of the rim of the hole in which the man sits. In Prince William Sound, on the NW. coast, the kayak is frequently built with two or three holes to contain two or three men. The bow has two beaks, one of which turns up, according to Captain Cook, like the head of a violin, as represented in No. 1254 of my collection. This is also used in the Aleutian Isles. The meaning of this double beak I have not been able to ascertain. The baidar used on this coast has also a double beak, as represented in No. 1255 of my collection.
In the British Museum there is a kayak with a single opening, from Behring Straits, which differs but little from another in the same museum from Greenland; the kayak of Greenland has a knob of ivory at each end to protect the sharp point. The baidar is used at Ochotsk and Kamtschatka, on the Asiatic coast, and all along the northern coast of America, eastward from Behring Strait. Models of both baidar and kayak are in the British Museum, from Kotzebue Sound. In Frobisher Strait, Frobisher, in 1577, says the boats are of two kinds of leather stretched on frames, the greater sort open, and carrying sixteen or twenty people (the baidar), and the lesser, to carry one man, covered over, except in one place where the man sits (the kayak). In Hudson’s Straits and Greenland, where the larger vessels are called oomiak, they are flat-sided and flat-bottomed, about three feet high, and nearly square at the bow and stern, whereas this sort on the north-west coast is sometimes pointed at bow and stern. Kerguelen, in 1767, mentions both kinds in Greenland; and Kalm, in 1747, speaks of both, though not from personal observation, on the coast of Labrador. The Esquimaux canoe has been known to have drifted from Greenland across the north of Scotland, and has been picked up, with the man still alive in it, on the coast of Aberdeen (Wilson).
In Britain the coracle of osier, covered with skin, is mentioned by Caesar, and in Britain, Gaul, and Italy by Lucan (A.D. 39-65). In Scotland, Bellenden, in the sixteenth century, speaks of the currock of wands, covered with bulls’ hide, as being in use in the sixteenth century, and its representative is still used in the west of Ireland. Sir William Wilde says that, under the name of curragh, it is still made of leather, stretched over a wooden frame, on the Boyne, and in Arran, on the west coast, of light timber, covered with painted canvas, which has superseded the use of leather. I have seen these vessels at Dingle, on the south-west coast, where they go by the name of nevōg; they are there 23 feet in length by 4 in width, and 1 ft. 9 inches deep, made of laths, and covered with painted canvas; they are used, from Valentia, along the west coast as far as Galway. In the south they are larger than in the north, where they are called curraghs, and a single man can carry one on his back, as the ancient Briton did his coracle. Their continuance is caused by their cheapness, costing only £6 when new. Here also they were, until recently, constructed of leather. They have a small triangular sail, and, like the most ancient forms of vessels, they are guided, when sailing, by means of oars, one on each side.
The trunks of trees, united by mutual attraction, as they floated down the stream, would suggest the idea of a raft. The women of Australia use rafts made of layers of reeds, from which they dive to obtain mussel-shells. In New Guinea the catamaran, or small raft formed of three planks lashed together with rattan, is the commonest vessel used. Others are larger, containing ten or twelve persons, and consist of three logs lashed together in five places, the centre log being the longest, and projecting at both ends.
This is exactly like the catamaran used on the coast of Madras, a model of one of which is in the Indian Museum; they are also used on the Ganges, and in the Asiatic isles. At Manilla they are known by the name of saraboas; but the perfection of raft navigation is on the coast of Peru. Ulloa, in 1735, describes the balzas used on the Guayaquil, in Ecuador, and on the coast as far south as Paita. They are called by the Indians of the Guayaquil jungadas, and by the Darien Indians puero. They are made of a wood so light that a boy can easily carry a log 1 foot in diameter and 3 or 4 yards long. They are always made of an odd number of beams, like the New Guinea and Indian rafts, the longest and thickest in the centre, and the others lashed on each side. Some are 70 ft. in length and 20 broad. When sailing, they are guided by a system of planks, called guaras, which are shoved down between the beams in different parts of the raft as they are wanted, the breadth of the plank being in the direction of the lines of the timbers. By means of these they are able to sail near the wind, and to luff up, bear away, and tack at pleasure. When a guara is put down in the fore part of the raft, it luffs up, and when in the hinder part, it bears away. This system of steering, he says, the Indians have learnt empirically, ‘their uncultivated minds never having examined into the rationale of the thing.’
It was one of these vessels which Bartolomew Ruiz, pilot of the second expedition for the discovery of Peru, met with; and which so astonished the sailors, who had never before seen any vessel on the coast of America provided with a sail. Condamine speaks of the rafts in 1743, on the Chinchipe, in Peru. They are also used on the coast of Brazil, where they are also called jungadas, from which locality there is a model of one in the British Museum, and another in the Christy collection. Professor Wilson thinks it was by means of these vessels, driven off the coast of America westward, that the Polynesian and Malay islands were peopled; and this brings us to the consideration of the peculiar class of vessel which is distributed over a continuous area in the Pacific and adjoining seas, viz. the outrigger canoe, which, I shall endeavour to show, was derived from the raft.
The sailing properties of the balza, or any other similar raft, must have been greatly impeded by the resistance offered to the water by the ends of its numerous beams. In order to diminish the resistance, the obvious remedy was to use only two beams, placed parallel to each other at a distance apart, with a platform laid on cross-poles between them.
Of this kind we find a vessel used by the Tasmanians, and described by Mr. Bonwick, on the authority of Lieut. Jeffreys. The natives, he says, would select two good stems of trees and place them parallel to each other, but a couple of yards apart; cross-pieces of small size were laid on these, and secured to the trees by scraps of tough bark. A stronger cross-timber, of greater thickness, was laid across the centre, and the whole was then covered by wicker-work. Such a float would be thirty feet long, and would hold from six to ten persons (Herbert Spencer, Descriptive Sociology (London, 1874), No. 3, Table V).
In Fiji, Williams describes a kind of vessel called ulatoka, a raised platform, floating on two logs, which must evidently be a vessel of the same description as that used in Tasmania.
From these two logs were derived the double canoe on the one hand, and the canoe with the outrigger on the other.
A link between the catamaran and the outrigger canoe is seen in a model in the India Museum, from Madras. It consists of the usual catamaran, already described, of three beams lashed together, the longest being in the centre, across which are attached, their ends extending on one side, long outrigger poles, to the extremities of which, parallel, and at some distance from the catamaran, is fastened an outrigger log, of smaller size and length, pointed at both ends, and boat-shaped, exactly like those used with the outrigger canoes to be hereafter described. When the art of hollowing out canoes was introduced, then one canoe and one log, or two canoes, were employed, as the case might be. This I consider to be a more natural sequence than to suppose the outrigger invented as a means of steadying the dug-out canoe.
The outrigger canoe, and its accompanying double canoe, is used over the whole of the Polynesian and Asiatic islands—from Easter Island on the east, to Ceylon and the Andamans on the west. Their varieties are also, in some cases, continuous; and I will endeavour to trace the distribution of each, commencing with the canoe with the single outrigger.
Towards the eastern and northern extremities of the Polynesian Islands we find that the canoes have a single outrigger, and that the ends of the outrigger poles are attached directly to the outrigger log, instead of being connected with it by upright supports, as is the case elsewhere. As the outrigger log is on a lower level than the line of the gunwales of the canoe, across which the other ends of the outrigger poles are lashed, they are generally curved downwards to meet the outrigger.
This is the form described by La Perouse in Easter Island. It is the same in the drawings of canoes from Marquesas; also in the one, figured by Wilkes, from Wytoohee or Disappointment Isle, in the Low Archipelago; and in the one from Tahiti, Society Isles; also in those of the Sandwich Isles and the Kingsmill Isles; and it reappears again on the extreme west of the group in Ceylon, No. 1265 of my collection.
But whilst this peculiarity appears to be constant in the above-mentioned region, the form of the body of the canoe differs in each group of islands. In the Marquesas the bow turns up very much, in the Sandwich Islands only slightly (No. 1264); in Disappointment Isle there is a projecting part before and behind, by which they step into it; in Tahiti they have a similar projection over the stern only, which is used for a similar purpose.
To the westward of these, in a group extending over the centre of the region in question, all the outriggers that I have seen described, either by means of models or drawings, have upright supports on the upper side, and on these the outrigger poles rest, so as to be on the level of the line of the gunwales. This is the case in Nuie or Savage Island; in Samoa (No. 1262); in the Caroline Isles; in Bowditch Island, one of the Union group; in Tonga and Fiji; in New Guinea; in the Louisiade Archipelago, and in North Australia.
Another peculiarity in this central region deserves notice. The ends of the canoe are covered with a deck extending over about one-third of its length fore and aft, and on this deck there is a row of upright pegs, carved out of the same piece as the deck, and running down the centre of it. Each peg is surmounted by a white Cypraea ovula shell tied on. The origin and meaning of this custom is unknown, but it was probably adopted originally as insignia of the rank of the owner. Its distribution is limited to a group of islands lying between about the 10th and 20th parallel of south latitude, and 170° and 180° west longitude. Cook, in 1773, speaks of it in the Friendly Isles; and Wilkes, in 1838, mentions it in Samoa, Fiji, and Bowditch Island. The canoes of the Solomon Isles and other islands are, however, also ornamented with shells in different parts.
The canoe with the single outrigger is also used in [Garret Dennis Island], which is described by Dampier in 1686; in the Ladrones, by Pigafetta, 1519; in the Pelew Islands; in Borneo; in Ceylon; in the Nicobar and Andaman Islands.
In Kingsmill and the Caroline Islands, to the north, the outrigger is somewhat smaller than elsewhere, its length not exceeding one-third of the length of the canoe. In the adjoining groups of the Kingsmill and Ladrone Islands we have a variety of this vessel in which the canoe, on the outrigger side, is nearly flat, having a belly only on the opposite side. This is described by Wilkes in 1838, and Dampier in 1686.
The double canoe represents a variety in which both logs of the double-logged raft have developed into canoes. The two canoes are placed side by side, at a little distance apart, and transverse spars are lashed across the gunwales of both; a platform being built upon the cross spars; No. 1266 of my collection.
Double canoes of this kind were used in New Zealand formerly, also in New Caledonia. Mr. Baines mentions it in North Australia, but I am not aware that it is used in New Guinea. Cook speaks of it in the Friendly Isles, Wilkes in Fiji. It was formerly used in Samoa, but Wilkes says it has been discontinued, and the single outrigger only is now used; in Tahiti; in the Low Archipelago, the inhabitants of which group are very expert sailors, steering by the stars, and seldom making any material error; in the Sandwich Isles; also in Ceylon, where it is called a paddy boat; in Burmah and in some of the Indian rivers; at Mosapore, where it goes by the name of langardy; and in Cochin, on the southern portion of the Malabar coast, where it is employed as a ferry-boat. It also appears, by a model in the India Museum, that it is used as high up as Patna, on the Ganges.
In Fiji we find a connecting link between the double canoe and the canoe with the single outrigger. Here the outrigger consists of a boat, similar in construction to the large one to which it is attached, but smaller, and connected with the platform between them by upright supports.
Contrivances for sailing near the wind with the single outrigger canoe have led to the introduction of several other varieties of this class of vessel. It is necessary that the outrigger should always be on the windward side. The outrigger acts as a weight on the windward side, to prevent the narrow canoe from being blown over on the opposite side. When it blows very hard, the men run out on to the outrigger, to give it the additional weight of their bodies. Wilkes says that whenever the outrigger gets to the leeward side, there is almost invariably an upset. The outrigger probably is pressed too deeply into the water, and meeting with too much resistance, breaks the poles. To meet this difficulty both the canoe and outrigger are, in some parts, made pointed at both ends. When they wish to tack, instead of luffing and coming about, they bear away, until the vessel gets on the opposite quarter, and then, by shifting the sail, they sail away again stern first. This system is pursued in Fiji, in parts of New Guinea, and northward, in Kingsmill Islands (Wilkes).
Another mode of meeting this difficulty consists in having two outriggers, one on each side. This is employed in the Louisiade Archipelago (No. 1260), in parts of New Guinea, and to the north, in the Sooloo Archipelago. Yet another method remains to be described. In Samoa the canoes are built with bow and stern, and the outrigger is pointed towards the fore part only. As these vessels can only sail one way, the outrigger, in tacking, must necessarily be sometimes on the leeward side; to meet this, they rig out a platform corresponding to the outrigger platform on the opposite side; this, for distinction’s sake, we may term a weather platform. It has no outrigger log, nor does it touch the water, but when the wind blows so heavily as to press the outrigger down on the lee side, they run out on the weather platform, and counterbalance the effect of the wind by their weight. This contrivance is used in some parts of New Guinea, where, it may be observed, the varieties of the outrigger canoe are more numerous than in most of the other islands. It is also used in the Solomon Isles, where the weather platform is of the same width as the outrigger platform; and probably in some of the other islands to the north.
Finally we have, in the Asiatic Archipelago, a contrivance which may be said to be derived partly from the double outrigger, and partly from the weather platform last described. In proportion as the simple dug-out canoe began to be converted into a built-up vessel, and to acquire greater beam, they began to depend less and less on the support of the outrigger. The double outrigger necessarily presented considerable resistance to the water, but the vessel was still too narrow to sail by itself. A weather platform had, however, been found sufficient to balance the vessel on one side, and the next step was to knock off the outrigger log on the other side, thereby converting the outrigger platform into a weather platform; the two platforms projecting one on each side of the vessel, on the level of the gunwales, without touching the water, and thereby acting on the principle of the balancing-pole of a tight-rope dancer, whilst the resistance to the water was by this means confined to that of the hull of the vessel itself. These double weather-platform boats were also found more convenient in inland waters, in the canals in Manilla, and elsewhere.
De Guignes, in 1796, mentions a contrivance of this sort in the Philippines, but from the account, it is not quite clear whether he refers to a double weather platform, or a vessel with an outrigger and a weather platform. He says that the boats at Manilla are very sharply built, and furnished with yards, which serve as balances, on the windward side of which, when the wind blows hard, the sailors place themselves to counterpoise the effect of the wind on the sails. This contrivance does not, however, always ensure safety, for at times the bamboos which form the balance break, in which case the boat founders and the crew are lost. Dampier, however, in 1686, clearly speaks of the double weather platform at Manilla. He says that the difference between these Manilla boats and those at Guam, in the Ladrones, is that, whereas at Guam there is a little boat, fastened to the outriggers, that lies in the water, the beams or bamboos here are fastened transverse-wise to the outlayers on each side, and touch not the water like boats, but one, three, or four feet above the water, and serve for the canoe-men to sit and row and paddle upon. He says, that when the vessel reels, the ends of the platform dip into the water, and the vessel rights itself. Still further north, at Rangoon, on the Irrawaddy, we find the same contrivance described by Symes in 1795. He says that the boats are long and narrow, sixty feet in length, and not more than twelve in the widest place; they require a good deal of ballast, and would have been in constant danger of upsetting, had they not been provided with outriggers which, composed of thin boards, or oftener of buoyant bamboos, make a platform that extends horizontally six or seven feet on the outside of the boat from stem to stern. Thus secure, he says, the vessel can incline no further than until the platform touches the surface of the water, when she immediately rights; on this stage the boatmen ply their oars.
This constitutes one out of many points of evidence that might be mentioned, serving to show that the arts and culture of the Burmese, and of all this part of Asia, have been derived from the Malay Archipelago more probably than the reverse.
The outrigger canoe itself has never, I believe, been known on the Irrawaddy within the memory of man, but, as already seen, it is used in the Nicobar and Andaman Isles and on the coast to the south.
These outriggers, or balancing platforms, appear gradually to have diminished in size as the vessel increased in beam, and there can be little doubt that the rude stages or balconies outside the gunwales represented in the models of many of the larger vessels used in these seas are the last vestiges of the outrigger. No. 1278 of my collection is an example of this.
All the various items of evidence which I have collected, and endeavoured to elucidate by means of survivals, whether in relation to modes of navigation or other branches of industry, appear to me to tend towards establishing a gradual development of culture as we advance northward. Although Buddhism and its concomitant civilization may have come from the north, there has been an earlier and prehistoric flow of culture in the opposite direction—northward—from the primaeval and now submerged cradle of the human family in the southern hemisphere. This, I venture to think, will establish itself more and more clearly, in proportion as we divest ourselves of the numerous errors which have arisen from our acceptance of the Noachian deluge as a universal catastrophe.
As human culture developed northward from the equator toward the 40th parallel of latitude, civilization began to bud out in Egypt, India, and China, and a great highway of nations was established by means of ships along the southern margin of the land, from China to the Red Sea.
Along this ocean highway may be traced many connexions in ship forms which have survived from the earliest times. The oculus, which, on the sacred boats of the Egyptians, represented the eye of Osiris guiding the mummy of the departed across the sacred lake, is still seen eastward—in India and China—converted into an ornamental device, whilst westward it lived through the period of the Roman and Grecian biremes and triremes, and has survived to this day on the Maltese rowing-boats and the xebecque of Calabria, or has been converted into a hawser-hole in modern European craft. The function of the rudder—which in the primitive vessels of the southern world is still performed by the paddlers, whilst paddling with their faces to the prow—was confided, as sails began to be introduced, to the rearmost oars. In some of the Egyptian sculptures the three hindermost rowers on each side are seen steering the vessel with their oars. Ultimately one greatly developed oar on each side of the stern performed this duty; the loom of which was attached to an upright beam on the deck, as is still the case in some parts of India. In some of the larger Malay prahaus there are openings or windows in the stern, considerably below the deck, by which the steersmen have access to two large rudders, one on each side; each rudder being the vestige of a side oar.
Throughout the Polynesian Islands the steering is performed with either one or two greatly developed paddles. Both in the rudder of the Egyptian sculptures and in the gubernaculum of the Roman vessels, we see the transition from the large double oar, one on each side, to the single oar at the stern. The ship of Ptolemaeus Philopator had four rudders, each thirty cubits in length (Smith’s Dict., s. v. ‘Navis’). The Chinese and Japanese rudder is but a modification of the oar, worked through large holes in the stern of the vessel; which large holes, in the case of the Japanese, owe their preservation to the orders of the Tycoon, who caused them to be retained in all his vessels, in order to prevent his subjects from venturing far to sea. The buccina, or shell trumpet, which is used especially on board all canoes in the Pacific, from the coast of Peru to Ceylon, is represented, together with the gubernaculum, in the hands of Tritons in Roman sculptures (Smith’s Dict., s. v. ‘Navis’), and the shell form of it was preserved in its metallic representatives.
The sail, in its simplest form, consists of a triangular mat, with bamboos lashed to the two longer sides. In New Guinea and some of the other islands, this sail, which is here seen in its simplest form, is simply put up on deck, with the apex downwards and the broad end up, and kept up by stays fore and aft. When a separate mast was introduced, this sail was hauled up by a halyard attached to one of the bamboos, at the distance of about one-fifth of its length from the broad end, the apex of the bamboo-edged mat being fastened forward by means of a tack. By taking away the lower bamboo the sail became the lateen sail of the Malay pirate proa, the singular resemblance of which to that of the Maltese galley of the eighteenth century (a resemblance shared by all other parts of the two vessels) may be seen by two models placed side by side in the Royal United Service Institution. Professor Wilson observes that the use of the sail appears to be almost unknown on either continent of America, and the surprise of the Spaniards on first seeing one used on board a Peruvian balza arose from this known peculiarity of early American navigation (p. 218). Lahontan, however, in 1684, says that the Canadian bark canoes, though usually propelled by paddles, sometimes carried a small sail. He does not, however, say whether the knowledge of these has been derived from Europeans. Mr. Lloyd also mentions small sails used with bark canoes in Newfoundland.
The crow’s-nest, which in the Egyptian vessels served to contain a slinger or an archer at the top of the mast, and which is also represented in the Assyrian sculptures, was still used for the same purpose in Europe in the fifteenth century, was modified in the sixteenth century, and became the mast-head so well known to midshipmen in our own time. The two raised platforms, which in the Egyptian vessels served to contain the man with the fathoming pole in the fore part, and the steersman behind, became the prora and the puppis of the Romans, and the forecastle and poop of modern European vessels. The aplustre, which, in the form of a lotus, ornamented the stern of the Egyptian war-craft, gave the form to the aplustre of the Greeks and Romans, and may still be seen on the stern of the Burmese war-boats at the present time.
All these numerous examples serve to show that where civilization has advanced the forms have been gradually changed; where, on the other hand, it has not advanced, they have remained unchanged. Sir Gardner Wilkinson and others have pointed out the striking resemblance between the boats of the ancient Egyptians and those of modern India. ‘The form of the stern, the principle and construction of the rudder, the cabins, the square sail, the copper eye on each side of the head, the line of small squares at the side, like false windows, and the shape of the oars of boats used on the Ganges, forcibly call to mind,’ he says, ‘those of the Nile, represented in the paintings of the Theban tombs.’ We have also seen (p. 214) that the inflated sheep-skin still serves to transport the Mesopotamian peasant across the Euphrates, as it did when Nimroud was a thriving city. The skin and wicker tub-shaped vessels still float down the Euphrates with their cargoes to Baghdad, are broken up, and the skins carried up the river again on mules, as they were in the time of Herodotus, upwards of 2,000 years ago. What is there to prevent our believing that the primitive vessels which we have been describing in the southern hemisphere, the representatives of some of which have been discovered in river deposits of the stone age in Europe, may have been in use in the countries in which they are now found, as long, and longer—far longer?
What reason is there to doubt that the rude bark-float of the Australian, the Tasmanian, and the Ethiopian; the catamaran of the Papuan; the dug-out of the New Zealander; the built-up canoe of the Samoan; and the improved ribbed vessel of the Ke islander, are survivals representing successive stages in the development of the art of ship-building, not lapses to ruder methods of construction as the result of degradation; that each stage supplies us with examples of what was at one time the perfection of the art, inconceivable ages ago? Some, as we have seen, especially the more primitive kinds, spread nearly all over the world, whilst others had a more limited area of distribution. Taken together, they enable us to trace back the history of ship-building from the time of the earliest Egyptian sculptures to the commencement of the art.
Nor does the interest of this inquiry confine itself to the development of ship-building. As affecting the means of locomotion, it throws light on the development of other branches of culture in early times. For even if we set aside exceptional instances in which individual canoes have been driven away to great distances—such as the case in which an Esquimaux in his kayak was picked up off the coast of Aberdeen, or that of a Chinese junk having been wrecked on the north-west coast of America, which might or might not have produced permanent results—and confine ourselves to those cases in which the distribution of like forms of vessels proves that there must probably have been frequent communication between shore and shore; and if we further assume, as I propose to do, that the existing means of communication in the Pacific in a great measure represents the amount of intercourse that took place across the sea in prehistoric times, that is to say, in times prior to the earliest Egyptian sculptures, we find no difficulty in accounting, by this means, for the striking similarity observable in the arts and ideas of savages in distant lands; for not only have these vessels been the means of conveying from place to place the material form of implements, such as celts, stone knives, and so forth, which, being imperishable, have been handed down to us unchanged, and the forms of which we know to have spread over large geographic areas; but also each voyage has conveyed a boat-load of ideas, of which no material record remains, in the shape of myths, religions, and superstitions, which have been emptied out upon the seashore, to seek affinity with other chatter that was indigenous to the place.
Thus, by means of intercommunication, no less than by spontaneous development, have been formed those numerous combinations which so greatly puzzle the student of culture at the present time.
P. 189. Steinitz, The Ship: its Origin and Progress (London, 1849), Pl. ii (frontispiece): cf. pp. ix, 4.
Gregory, ‘Expedition to the NW. coast of Australia,’ Roy. Geogr. Soc. Journal, xxxii. (1862) p. 376.
P. 190. Cook, Voyages (ed. London, 1842), vol. i. p. 204.
Kitto, Pictorial Bible, note on 2 Sam. xix. 18.
Pliny, ix. 10 (cf. vi. 24); Diodorus, iii. 21, 5; Strabo, p. 773; turtle-shell boats were in actual use among the ‘Turtle-eaters’ (Chelonophagi) of Carmania and the islands of the Red Sea.
P. 191. Kalm, Travels into North America (London, 1771), vol. ii. pp. 38-9.
Raleigh’s Expedition; Amadas and Barlawe, The First Voyage to the Coasts of America (= Pinkerton (1811), vol. xii. p. 567).
Columbus, The Journal of Christopher Columbus, &c.; transl. Markham (Hakluyt Society, 1893), p. 39, mentions dug-out canoes (cf. pp. 58, 94), but not the use of fire.
Mouat, Adventures and Researches among the Andaman Islanders (London, 1863), pp. 315-6; only hand-hollowing in use in his time: no mention of Blair here: perhaps a verbal communication to the author.
Symes, An Account of an Embassy to the Kingdom of Ava in 1795 (London, 1800), p. 320 (= Pinkerton (1811), vol. ix. p. 500).
Turner, Nineteen Years in Polynesia (London, 1861), pp. 425-6.
P. 192. Wood, Natural History of Man (London, 1868-70), vol. ii. p. 732.
P. 193. Wilkes, United States Exploring Expedition (Philadelphia, 1845), vol. ii. p. 150 (Samoa); vol. v. p. 322 (Manilla); vol. v. p. 353 (Sooloo).
De Guignes, Voyages à Peking, Manille, et l’Ile de France (Paris, 1808), vol. iii. p. 402.
De Morga, The Philippine Islands (1609); transl. by Hon. H. E. Stanley (Hakluyt Society, 1868), p. 272; two types, (a) ‘made of one very large tree’; (b) ‘also vireys and barangays ... joined together with wooden bolts.’
Symes, An Account of an Embassy to the Kingdom of Ava in 1795 (London, 1800), p. 320 (= Pinkerton (1811), vol. ix. p. 500).
P. 194. Turpin, Histoire de Siam (Paris, 1771), vol. i. pp. 34-6.
Pietro della Valle, Viaggi (Brighton, 1843), vol. i. pp. 602-3.
Duarte Barbosa (Magellan), A Description of the Coasts of East Africa and Malabar (1514); transl. by Hon. H. E. Stanley (Hakluyt Society, 1866), p. 9.
Livingstone, Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa (London, 1857), p. 64.
Barth, Travels and Discoveries in North and Central Africa (London, 1857), vol. ii. p. 469; the tributary is the Faro; Yola is the adjacent town.
Grant, Walk across Africa (London, 1864), p. 304.
Condamine, M. de la, Relation abrégée d’un voyage fait dans l’intérieur de l’Amérique méridionale (Paris, 1745), p. 63 (at Laguna).
P. 195. Wilson, Prehistoric Man (London, 1862), vol. i. p. 169.
Bartram, Travels through N. and S. Carolina, Georgia, &c. (London, 1792), p. 225.
Kalm, Travels into N. America (London, 1771), vol. ii. pp. 240-2.
Pliny, xvi. 40 Germaniae praedones singulis arboribus cavatis navigant, quarum quaedam et triginta homines ferunt.
Keller, Lake Dwellings of Switzerland (transl. by J. E. Lee, 2nd ed., 1878), p. 45, Pl. x. 8.
Sir W. Wilde, Catalogue of the Antiquities of the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy (Dublin, 1863), vol. i. pp. 202-4.
Ware, The Antiquities and History of Ireland (London, 1705), p. 47.
Wilson, Prehistoric Man (London, 1862), vol. i. pp. 153, 160.
P. 197. Cook, Voyages (London, 1842), vol. i. p. 193.
P. 197. Barth, Travels (London, 1857), vol. ii. p. 469.
Byron, An Account of the Voyages undertaken ... for making Discoveries in the Southern Hemisphere ... by Commodore Byron, &c., by John Hawksworth (London, 1773), vol. i. p. 79.
P. 198. Duarte Barbosa, A Description, &c. (Hakluyt Society, 1866), pp. 14-15.
Denham and Clapperton, Travels in Northern and Central Africa (London, 1826), p. 60 (Denham).
Barth, Travels (London, 1857), vol. iii. p. 293.
Grant, Walk across Africa (London, 1864), p. 196.
P. 199. Cook, Voyages (1842), vol. i. p. 425 (Friendly Islands); pp. 95-7 (Otaheite).
La Perouse, Voyage autour du monde (Paris, 1897), Atlas, No. 61.
Wilkes, United States Exploring Expedition (Philadelphia, 1845), vol. i. pp. 331-2 (Wytoohee); vol. ii. p. 157 (Samoa).
P. 200. Williams, Fiji and the Fijians (London, 1858), vol. i. pp. 71-6.
Wilkes, l. c., vol. v. p. 52.
Wallace, The Malay Archipelago (London, 1869), vol. ii. p. 159 (the long journey); p. 92 (nail-less boats); pp. 183-6 (the Ke islanders). [The author’s text has been amended to conform with the statements of Wallace.—Ed.]
P. 201. Dampier, A New Voyage round the World (London, 1729), vol. i. p. 429.
Turpin, Histoire de Siam (Paris, 1771), vol. i. p. 36.
P. 202. Duarte Barbosa (Magellan), A Description, &c. (Hakluyt, 1866), pp. 147-8.
Marco Polo, Travels, transl. by Sir H. Yule (London, 1903), vol. i. p. 108.
P. 203. Lobo, A Voyage to Abyssinia (London, 1735), p. 24.
Isaiah xviii. 2; see Kitto’s Pictorial Bible, note on 2 Sam. xix. 18.
P. 204. Wilson, Prehistoric Man (1862), vol. i. p. 169.
Sir Gardner Wilkinson, The Manners and Customs of Ancient Egypt, 3rd ed., 1878, vol. ii. p. 208, No. 403 (No. 399, 1st ed.).
Lucan, Pharsalia, iv. 136 Conseritur bibula Memphitica cymba papyro.
Plutarch, de Iride et Osiride, 18.
Pliny, vii. 56 Nave primus in Graeciam ex Aegypto Danaus advenit: ante ratibus navigabatur, inventis in Mari Rubro inter insulas a rege Erythra (cf. ix. 10, and note on p. 190 above). Reperiuntur, qui Mysos et Troianos priores excogitasse, cum transirent adversus Thracas. Etiam nunc in Britannico Oceano vitiles corio circumsutae fiunt: in Nilo ex papyro, et scirpo, et arundine. [The quotation, as given in J.A.I., iv. 414, is inaccurate.—Ed.]
Huxley, Trans. Int. Congr. Preh. Arch., Norwich, 1868 (London, 1869), p. 92; see also p. 147 above.
P. 205. Owen, Journ. Anthrop. Inst., vol. iv. p. 240.
Rosellini, Monumenti dell’ Egitto e della Nubia (Pisa, 1834), Mon. Civ., Pl. cxix. 1, cxvii. 3 (= Plate XV. 109-11 herewith).
P. 206. Prideaux; Markham, A History of the Abyssinian Expedition, with a chapter ... by Lieut. W. F. Prideaux (London, 1869), p. 101.
Denon, Voyages dans la Basse et la Haute Égypte (London, 1807), vol. ii. p. 72.
Belzoni, Narrative of Operations and Recent Discoveries ... in Egypt and Nubia (London, 1820), p. 62; (holds nine persons).
Bruce, Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile (London, 1790), vol. v. p. 6.
P. 207. Pliny, xiii. 2 refers to wooden boats; v. 2 to wickerwork: ibi Aethiopicae conveniunt naves: namque eas plicatiles humeris transferunt, quoties ad cataractas ventum est.
Belzoni, Narrative of Operations (London, 1820), pp. 380-1.
Pliny, v. 2 (above). Lucan, Phars. iv. 136 (above).
Herodotus, ii. 96. Wilkinson (Birch), 3rd ed., vol. ii. p. 307.
P. 208. Homer, Odyssey, v. 241-261. Smith, Dict. Gr. and Rom. Antiq., s. v. ‘Navis.’
Nydam boat. Engelhardt, Denmark in the Early Iron Age (London, 1866), pp. 29-39, Pl. i-iv.
Tacitus, Germania, 44.
P. 210. Regnard, Œuvres (Paris, 1854), vol. i, Voyage de Laponie, pp. 51, 100.
Outhier, Journal d’un Voyage au Nord, en 1736 et 1737 (Paris, 1744), pp. 60-1.
Bell, Travels from St. Petersburg in Russia to diverse parts of Asia (Glasgow, 1763), vol. i. p. 168 ff.
Atkinson, Oriental and Western Siberia (London, 1858), pp. 14-15.
P. 211. Belzoni, Narrative of Operations, &c. ... in Egypt and Nubia (1820), p. 62.
P. 212. Wilkes, U. S. Exploring Expedition (Philadelphia, 1845), vol. i. p. 127. [Pritchard.]
Kalm, Travels into North America (London, 1771), vol. ii. p. 298.
Lahontan, New Voyages to North America (London, 1735), vol. i. pp. 26-9.
P. 213. Lane-Fox (Pitt-Rivers), Report of the British Association, Brighton, 1872 (London, 1873), p. 163.
Steinitz, The Ship: its Origin and Progress (London, 1849), Pl. xvi. 6.
P. 214. Layard, Nineveh and its Remains (7th ed., London, 1848), vol. ii. pp. 381-2. Cf. Herodotus, i. 194.
Lempriere, A Tour from Gibraltar to Tangier (London, 1793), p. 421.
P. 215. Herodotus, i. 194.
Kitto, Pictorial Bible, note on 2 Sam. xix. 18. Layard, l. c.
Hamilton (Alexander), A New Account of the East Indies, 1688-1723 (Edinb. 1727), vol. i. p. 88. They are described, even later, by Sir R. K. Porter, Travels in Georgia, &c., 1817-20 (London, 1821-2), vol. ii. p. 260; and figured in Rawlinson, Herodotus (1862), vol. i. p. 268, after Chesney, Expedition for the Survey of the Euphrates and Tigris (London, 1850), vol. ii.
Buchanan, A Journey from Madras through the countries of Mysore, Canara, and Malabar (London, 1807), vol. ii. pp. 121, 141, 151, 163.
P. 216. Cook, Voyages (London, 1842), vol. ii. pp. 303-4.
Frobisher, The Three Voyages of Martin Frobisher, ed. Collinson (Hakluyt Society, 1867), p. 384.
Kerguelen, Relation d’un voyage dans la mer du Nord (Paris, 1771), pp. 178-9.
Kalm, Travels into North America (London, 1771), vol. ii. p. 241; iii. p. 16.
Wilson, Prehistoric Man (London, 1862), vol. i. p. 148.
P. 217. Caesar, de Bello Civili, i. 54.
Lucan, Pharsalia, iii. 131-5.
Bellenden, The History and Chronicles of Scotland, &c. 1536 (Edinburgh, 1821), vol. i. p. lix.
Sir W. Wilde, Catalogue ... of the Royal Irish Academy (Dublin, 1863), vol. i. p. 204.
Ulloa, A Voyage to South America, 1735 (London, 1807), vol. i. pp. 182-5.
P. 218. Bartolomew Ruiz. See Benzoni, Historia del Mondo Nuovo (Venice, 1572), p. 165 (figure): reproduced in Benzoni (ed. Smyth: Hakluyt Soc., 1857), p. 243: cf. Winsor, Narrative and Critical History of America (London, 1886), vol. ii. p. 508 (figure).
Condamine, M. de la, Relation abrégée d’un voyage fait dans l’intérieur de l’Amérique méridionale (Paris, 1745), p. 30 (on the Maranon, not the Chinchipe R.). ‘Un exprès que j’avois dépêché de Tupenda ... avoit franchi tous ces obstacles sur un petit radeau fait avec deux ou trois pièces de bois, ce qui suffit à un Indien nud et excellent nageur, comme ils le sont tous.’
Wilson, Prehistoric Man (London, 1862), vol. i. p. 177.
P. 219. Bonwick, Daily Life of the Tasmanians (London, 1870), p. 51.
Williams, Fiji and the Fijians (London, 1858), vol. i. p. 76.
P. 220. La Perouse, Voyage autour du monde (Paris, 1797), vol. ii. p. 94.
Wilkes, U. S. Exploring Expedition (Philadelphia, 1845), vol. i. p. 331.
Cook, Voyages (London, 1842), vol. i. p. 425.
Wilkes, l. c, vol. ii. p. 151 (Samoa); iii. pp. 365-6 (Fiji); v. pp. 11-12 (Bowditch Island).
P. 221. Dampier, A New Voyage round the World (London, 1729), vol. i. p. 215 (at Guam in the Ladrones; elsewhere he notes them ‘only at Mindanao’ in the Philippines, pp. 298-300).
P. 221. Pigafetta, Voyage round the World (= Pinkerton (1811), vol. xi. p. 325).
Wilkes, U.S. Explor. Exped. (Philadelphia, 1845), vol. v. p. 52 (Kingsmill Is.).
Dampier, A New Voyage, &c. (1729), vol. i. p. 298 (Kingsmill Is., and Ladrones).
Baines, quoted in Wood, Nat. Hist. of Man (London, 1868), vol. ii. p. 8.
Cook, Voyages (London, 1842), vol. i. p. 425.
Wilkes, l. c., vol. iii. p. 365 (Fiji); ii. p. 151 (Samoa).
P. 222. Wilkes, l. c., vol. iii. p. 365 (Fiji); v. p. 52 (Kingsmill).
P. 223. De Guignes, Voyages à Peking, Manille, et l’Ile de France (Paris, 1808), vol. iii. p. 402.
Dampier, A New Voyage round the World (London, 1729), pp. 298-300.
Symes, An Account of an Embassy to the Kingdom of Ava in 1795 (London, 1800), p. 223 (= Pinkerton (1811), vol. ix. p. 455).
P. 226. Wilson, Prehistoric Man (London, 1862), vol. i. p. 175.
Lahontan, New Voyage to North America (London, 1735), vol. i. p. 28.
Lloyd, Journ. Anthrop. Inst., vol. iv. p. 28.
P. 227. Wilkinson (Birch), Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians (3rd ed., London, 1878), vol. ii. p. 219.
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