So in like manner we must assume that the development of the bronze celt extended over a long period of time; that each new improvement was communicated from tribe to tribe and from nation to nation; but that each country manufactured its own implements, and varied in the construction of them. The proof that this was the case is found in the circumstance that moulds for casting them have been found in different countries. Plate XX, Fig. 31, represents a stone mould found at Ballynahinch, Co. Down, Ireland, and figured in the Catalogue of the Royal Irish Academy; it is adapted for casting celts of the Class B. Fig. 32 is a stone mould for Class G, found at Montaigu, near Valoignes, Normandy, and is taken from a cast in the Museum of the Society of Antiquaries. Fig. 33, a stone mould for Class H, from Kilkenny, Ireland. Fig. 34, two halves of a bronze mould for Class E, from Morges, Switzerland, figured in Keller, Plate xxxix. Fig. 35, two halves of a bronze mould for Class H, found in the Forest of Bricquebec, Normandy, in the Museum of the Society of Antiquaries. Fig. 36, one-half of a bronze mould for Class H, from England, figured in the Catalogue of the Royal Irish Academy, ‘Bronze,’ page 393. In the three last specimens it will be seen that the mode of fitting the two halves together, so as to prevent the escape of the metal, is by means of a ridge on one half, fitting into a groove in the other. It is improbable that a contrivance so identical as this should have arisen independently in the three countries. Further proof of connexion is shown by the identity of the ribs in the interior of the sockets of celts belonging to Class H. Figs. 37 and 38 represent sections of socket celts from Ireland, the former showing three, the latter one, longitudinal rib of raised metal running from the bottom of the socket for some distance up the side of the interior of the socket. Fig. 39 is the section of a socket celt from Denmark, in my collection, having one rib of the same kind. It has been suggested that these ribs represent the interstices between slices of the core, by means of which the socket was formed in casting; if so, the cores must have been constructed of some hard material, cut in slices, in order to facilitate their removal from the socket when formed. Several objections may, however, be urged against this; in the first place, no such cores have ever been discovered, which tends to the supposition that the cores must, in all probability, have been constructed of clay; in the second place, it will be seen by reference to Fig. 20 that this celt has only one central rib; if, therefore, the rib was formed by the metal pressing into the interstices between the slices of the core, it is evident that the core in this case had only two slices; but it will be seen that the aperture of the socket expands towards the bottom, and it would have been impossible, therefore, to extract the core if it were divided into only two parts.
The theory of core slices must, therefore, be abandoned, and we are driven to the conclusion that the ribs must have been intentional, either to give strength to the celt, which is unlikely from the great thickness of the metal, or to form channels for the passage of the metal in casting, or, what is more probable, to serve the purpose of gripping the portion of the wooden handle which fitted into the socket, and preventing its shifting with the blows of the weapon. Fig. 39 represents cross ribs at the bottom of the socket of a celt from Denmark, in my collection. Whatever may have been the purpose for which the ribs were formed, their identity in the implements of the two countries serves us as an additional proof of intercourse between them.
Although moulds for casting celts have not been found in Denmark, there is evidence to show, from vestiges of scoriae that have been found, that they were there cast in clay, as indeed they must probably have been to a great extent in other parts of Europe.
It would be premature to speculate upon the primary sources of the bronze civilization of Europe, until we have examined carefully the distribution of the other weapons belonging to that period. This much may, however, I think, be said with respect to the geographical region of bronze celts, that they belong more especially to the north and west of Europe; they have never been found in any of those countries which were occupied by the Phoenicians, nor have we any sufficient reason for believing that they were common in Greece. We have, therefore, no evidence whatever for supposing that the north of Europe derived the first idea of these weapons from either of those nations. We certainly have only negative evidence as yet for affirming that they did not, but the burden of proof must rest with those who have attributed them to the Phoenicians. To what extent they were employed in Russia and Northern Siberia, is a point which we have not as yet sufficient evidence to determine. I think, however, I am justified in saying that those hitherto discovered in Siberia are of a late type, belonging chiefly to the socket variety, and that they are there often associated with weapons of iron. I trust, however, to have an opportunity of entering more fully into this subject on a future occasion, when treating of the weapons of the later bronze and early iron periods of Europe.
In the paper which I had the honour of reading to this Institute at Bethnal Green (pp. 1-19), I spoke of the general principles by which I was guided in the course of inquiries, of which the present paper forms a section. I need not, therefore, now refer to them further than to say that the materials for this paper were collected whilst writing a note to my catalogue raisonné relating to the case of models of early forms of ships.[220]
In inquiries of this nature it is always necessary to guard against the tendency to form theories in the first instance, and go in search of evidence to support them afterwards. On the other hand, in dealing with so vast a subject as Anthropology, including all art, all culture, and all races of mankind, it is next to impossible to adhere strictly to the opposite of this, and collect the data first, to the exclusion of all idea of the purpose they are to be put to in the sequel, because all is fish that comes into the anthropological basket, and no such basket could possibly be big enough to contain a millionth part of the materials necessary for conducting an inquiry on this principle. Some guide is absolutely necessary to the student in selecting his facts. The course which I have pursued, in regard to the material arts, is to endeavour to establish the sequence of ideas. When the links of connexion are found close together, then the sequence may be considered to be established. When they occur only at a distance, then they are brought together with such qualifications as the nature of the case demands. Other members of this Institute have followed the same course in relation to other branches of culture, the object being to lay the foundation of a true anthropological classification, without seeking either to support a dogma or establish a paradox. This is, I believe, the requirement of our time, and the necessary preliminary to the introduction of a science of Anthropology.
Whilst, however, deprecating the influence of forgone conclusions, there are certain principles already established by science which we cannot afford to disregard, even at the outset of inquiries of this nature. It would be sheer moonshine, in the present state of knowledge, to study Anthropology on any other basis than the basis of development; nor must we, in studying development, fail to distinguish between racial development and the development of culture. The affinity of certain races for particular phases of culture, owing to the hereditary transmission of faculties, constitutes an important element of inquiry to be weighed in the balance with other things, just as the farmer weighs in the balance of probabilities the nature of the soil in which his turnips are growing; but when particular branches of culture do run in the same channel with the distribution of particular races, this is always a coincidence to be investigated and explained, each by the light of its own history. It would be just as reasonable to assume with the ancients, that the knowledge of every art was originally inculcated by the gods, as to assume that particular arts and particular ideas arise spontaneously and as a necessary consequence of the possession of particular pigments beneath the skin.
Nobody doubts that there must be affinities and interdependencies between the race and the crop of ideas that is grown upon it; but the law, ex nihilo nihil fit, is as true of ideas as it is of races, and in the relations between them it is as true and has the same value, neither more nor less, as the statement that potatoes do spring out of the ground where no potatoes have been sown. To study culture is, therefore, to trace the history of its development, as well as the qualities of the people amongst whom it flourishes. In doing this it is not sufficient to deal with generalities, as, for example, to ascertain that one people employ bark canoes, whilst another use rafts. It is necessary to consider the details of construction, because it is by means of these details that we are sometimes able to determine whether the idea has been of home growth or derived from without. The difficulty is to obtain the necessary details for the purpose. Travellers do not give them, as a rule, especially modern travellers. The older books are more valuable, both because they deal with nations in a more primitive condition, and also because they are more detailed; books were fewer, and men took more pains with them; now the traveller writes for a circulating library, and for the unthinking portion of mankind, who will not be bothered with details. I have been careful to give the dates to the authors quoted. But we must endeavour to remedy this evil before it is too late. The Notes and Queries on Anthropology[221], published by the Committee of the British Association, are drawn up with this object. It is to be hoped that they will receive attention, but I fear not much, for the reasons already mentioned; the supply will be equal to the demand. As long as we have a large Geographical Society and a small Anthropological Society, so long travellers will bring home accurate geographical details, abundance of information about the flow of water all over the world, but the flow of human races and human ideas will receive little attention. With these preliminary remarks I pass on to the subject of my paper.
Following out the principle adopted in Parts 1 and 2 of my Catalogue, of employing the constructive arts of existing savages as survivals to represent successive stages in the development of the same arts in prehistoric times, it may be advisable, in order to study the history of each part of a canoe or primitive sailing vessel, to divide the subject under seven heads, as follows: viz.—(1) Solid trunks or dug-out canoes, developing into (2) Vessels on which the planks are laced or sewn together, and these developing into such as are pinned with plugs of wood, and ultimately nailed with iron or copper; (3) Bark canoes; (4) Vessels of skins and wicker-work; (5) Rafts, developing into (6) Outrigger canoes, and ultimately into vessels of broader beam, to which may be added (7) rudders, sails, and contrivances which gave rise to parts of a more advanced description of vessel, such as the oculus, aplustre, forecastle, and poop.
It requires but little imagination to conceive an idea of the process by which a wooden support in the water forced itself upon the notice of mankind. The great floods to which the valleys of many large rivers are subject, more especially those which have their sources in tropical regions, sometimes devastate the whole country within miles of their banks, and by their suddenness frequently overtake and carry down numbers of both men and animals, together with large quantities of timber which had grown upon the sides of the valleys. The remembrances of such deluges are preserved in the traditions of many savage races, and there can be little doubt that it was by this means that the human race first learnt to make use of floating timber as a support for the body. The wide distribution of the word signifying ship—Latin navis; Greek ναῦς; Sanskrit nau; Celtic nao; Assam nao; Port Jackson, Australia, nao—attests the antiquity of the term. In Bible history the same term has been employed to personify the tradition of the first shipbuilder, Noah.
It is even said, though with what truth I am not aware, that the American grey squirrel (Sciurus migratorius), which migrates in large numbers, crossing large rivers, has been known to embark on a piece of floating timber, and paddle itself across (Wilson, Prehistoric Man, 1862, vol. i. p. 147).
The North American Indians frequently cross rivers by clasping the left arm and leg round the trunk of a tree, and swimming with the right (Steinitz, History of the Ship, Pl. 2).
The next stage in the development of the canoe would consist in pointing the ends, so as to afford less resistance to the water. In this stage we find it represented on the NW. coast of Australia. Gregory, in the year 1861, says that his ship was visited on this coast by two natives, who had paddled off on logs of wood shaped like canoes, not hollowed, but very buoyant, about 7 feet long, and 1 foot thick, which they propelled with their hands only, their legs resting on a little rail made of small sticks driven in on each side. Mr. T. Baines, also, in a letter quoted by the Rev. J. G. Wood, in his Natural History of Man (vol. ii. p. 7), speaks of some canoes which he saw in North Australia as being ‘mere logs of wood, capable of carrying a couple of men’. Others used on the north coast are dug out, but as these are provided with an outrigger, they have probably been derived from New Guinea. The canoes used by the Australians on the rivers consist either of a bundle of rushes bound together and pointed at the ends, or else they are formed of bark in a very simple manner; but on the south-east coast, near Cape Howe, Captain Cook, in his first voyage, found numbers of canoes in use by the natives on the seashore. These he described as being very like the smaller sort used in New Zealand, which were hollowed out by means of fire. One of these was of a size to be carried on the shoulders of four men.
It has been thought that the use of hollowed canoes may have arisen from observing the effect of a split reed or bamboo upon the water. The nautilus is also said to have given the first idea of a ship to man; and Pliny, Diodorus, and Strabo have stated that large tortoise-shells were used by primitive races of mankind (Kitto, Pictorial Bible). It has also been supposed that the natural decay of trees may have first suggested the employment of hollow trees for canoes, but such trees are not easily removed entire. It is difficult to conceive how so great an advance in the art of shipbuilding was first introduced, but there can be no doubt that the agent first employed for this purpose was fire.
I have noticed when travelling in Bulgaria that the gipsies and others who roam over that country usually select the foot of a dry tree to light their cooking fire; the dry wood of the tree, combined with the sticks collected at the foot of it, makes a good blaze, and the tree throws forward the heat like a fireplace. Successive parties camping on the same ground, attracted thither by the vicinity of water, use the same fireplaces, and the result is that the trees by degrees become hollowed out for some distance from the foot, the hollow part formed by the fire serving the purpose of a semi-cylindrical chimney. Such a tree, torn up by the roots, or cut off below the part excavated by the fire, would form a very serviceable canoe, the parts not excavated by the fire being sound and hard. The Andaman islanders use a tree in this manner as an oven, the fire being kept constantly burning in the hollow formed by the flames.
One of the best accounts of the process of digging out a canoe by means of fire is that described by Kalm, on the Delaware river, in 1747. He says that, when the Indians intend to fell a tree, for want of proper instruments they employ fire; they set fire to a quantity of wood at the roots of the tree, and in order that the fire might not reach further up than they would have it, they fasten some rags to a pole, dip them in water, and keep continually washing the tree a little above the fire until the lower part is burnt nearly through; it is then pulled down. When they intend to hollow a tree for a canoe, they lay dry branches along the stem of the tree as far as it must be hollowed out, set them on fire, and replace them by others. While these parts are burning, they keep pouring water on those parts that are not to be burnt at the sides and ends. When the interior is sufficiently burnt out, they take their stone hatchets and shells and scoop out the burnt wood. These canoes are usually 30 or 40 feet long. In the account of one of the expeditions sent out by Raleigh in 1584 a similar description is given of the process adopted by the Indians of Virginia, except that, instead of sticks, resin is laid on to the parts to be excavated and set fire to: canoes capable of holding twenty persons were formed in this manner.
The Waraus of Guiana employ fire for excavating their canoes; and when Columbus discovered the Island of Guanahani or San Salvador, in the West Indies, he found [fire] employed for this purpose by the natives, who called their boats ‘canoe’, a term which has ever since been employed by Europeans to express this most primitive class of vessel.
Dr. Mouat says that, in Blair’s time, the Andaman islanders excavated their canoes by the agency of fire; but it is not employed for that purpose now, the whole operation being performed by hand. Symes, in 1800, speaks of the Burmese war-boats, which were excavated partly by fire and partly by cutting. Nos. 1276 and 1277 of my collection are models of these boats. In New Caledonia, Turner, in 1845, says that the natives felled their trees by means of a slow fire at the foot, taking three or four days to do it. In excavating a canoe, he says, they kindle a fire over the part to be burnt out, and keep dropping water over the sides and ends, so as to confine the fire to the required spot, the burnt wood being afterwards scraped out with stone tools. The New Zealanders, and probably the Australians also, employ fire for this purpose [Cook]. The canoes of the Krumen in West Africa are also excavated by means of fire.
A further improvement in the development of the dug-out canoe consists in bending the sides into the required form after it has been dug out. This process of fire-bending has already been described on p. 87 of my Catalogue (Parts i and ii), when speaking of the methods employed by the Esquimaux and Australians in straightening their wooden spears and arrow-shafts. The application of this process to canoe-building by the Ahts of the north-west coast of North America is thus described by Mr. Wood in his Natural History of Man, vol. ii. p. 732. The canoe is carved out of a solid trunk of cedar (Thuja gigantea). It is hollowed out, not by fire, but by hand, and by means of an adze formed of a large mussel-shell; the trunk is split lengthwise by wedges. All is done by the eye. When it is roughly hollowed it is filled with water, and red-hot stones put in until it boils. This is continued until the wood is quite soft, and then a number of cross-pieces are driven into the interior, so as to force the canoe into its proper shape, which it ever afterwards retains. While the canoe is still soft and pliant, several slight cross-pieces are inserted, so as to counteract any tendency towards warping. The outside of the vessel is then hardened by fire, so as to enable it to resist the attacks of insects, and also to prevent it cracking when exposed to the sun. The inside is then painted some bright colour, and the outside is usually black and highly polished. This is produced by rubbing it with oil after the fire has done its work. Lastly, a pattern is painted on its bow. There is no keel to the boat. The red pattern of the painting is obtained by a preparation of anato. For boring holes the Ahts use a drill formed by a bone of a bird fixed in a wooden handle.
A precisely similar process to this is employed in the formation of the Burmese dug-out canoes, and has thus been described to me by Capt. O’Callaghan, who witnessed the process during the Burmese War in 1852. A trunk of a tree of suitable length, though much less in diameter than the intended width of the boat, is cut into the usual form, and hollowed out. It is then filled with water, and fires are lit, a short distance from it, along its sides. The water gradually swells the inside, while the fire contracts the outside, till the width is greatly increased. The effect thus produced is rendered permanent by thwarts being placed so as to prevent the canoe from contracting in width as it dries; the depth of the boat is increased by a plank at each side, reaching as far as the ends of the hollowed part. Canoes generally show traces of the fire and water treatment just described, the inner surface being soft and full of superficial cracks, while the outer is hard and close.
It is probable that this mode of bending canoes has been discovered during the process of cooking, in which red-hot stones are used in many countries to boil the water in vessels of skin or wood, in which the meat is cooked. No. 1256 of my collection is a model of an Aht canoe, painted as here described. No. 1257 is a full-sized canoe from this region, made out of a single trunk; it is not painted, so that the grain of the wood can be seen.
The distribution of the dug-out canoe appears to be almost universal. It is especially used in southern and equatorial regions. Leaving Australia, we find it employed with the outrigger, which will be described hereafter (pp. 218-9), in many parts of the Polynesian and Asiatic islands, including New Guinea, New Zealand, New Caledonia, and the Sandwich Islands. It was not used by the natives of Tasmania, who employed a float consisting of a bundle of bark and rushes, which will be described in another place (p. 203). Wilkes speaks of it in Samoa, at Manilla, and the Sooloo Archipelago. De Guignes in 1796 and De Morga in 1609 saw them in the Philippines, where they are called pangues, some carrying from two to three and others from twelve to fifteen persons. They are (or were) also used in the Pelew, Nicobar, and Andaman Isles. In the India Museum there is a model of one from Assam, used as a mail boat, and called dâk nao. In Burmah, Symes, in 1795, describes the war-boats of the Irrawaddy as 80 to 100 feet long, but seldom exceeding 8 feet in width, and this only by additions to the sides; carrying fifty to sixty rowers, who use short oars that work on a spindle, and who row instead of paddling. Captain O’Callaghan, however, informs me that they sometimes use paddles (Nos. 1276 and 1277). They are made of one piece of the teak tree. The king had five hundred of these vessels of war. They are easily upset, but the rowers are taught to avoid being struck on the broadside; they draw only 3 feet of water. On the Menan, in Siam, Turpin, in 1771, says that the king’s ballons are made of a single tree, and will contain 150 rowers; the two ends are very much elevated, and the rowers sit cross-legged, by which they lose a great deal of power. The river vessels in Cochin China are also described as being of the same long, narrow kind. At Ferhabad, in Persia, Pietro della Valle, in 1614, describes the canoes as being flat-bottomed, hollow trees, carrying ten to twelve persons.
In Africa, Duarte Barbosa, in 1514, saw the Moors at Zuama make use of boats, almadias, hollowed out of a single trunk, to bring clothes and other merchandise from Angos. Livingstone says the canoes of the Bayeye of South Africa are hollow trees, made for use and not for speed. If formed of a crooked stem they become crooked vessels, conforming to the line of the timber. On the Benuwé, at its junction with the [Yola], Barth, for the first time in his travels southward, saw what he describes as rude little shells hollowed out of a single tree; they measured 25 to 30 feet in length, 1 to 1½ foot in height, and 16 inches in width; one of them, he says, was quite crooked. On the White Nile, in Unyoro, Grant says that the largest canoe carried a ton and a half, and was hollowed out of a trunk. On the Kitangule, west of Lake Victoria Nyanza, near Karague, he describes the canoes as being hollowed out of a log of timber 15 feet long and the breadth of an easy-chair. These kind of canoes are also used by the Makoba east of Lake Ngami, by the Apingi and Camma, and the Krumen of the West African coast; of which last, No. 1272 of my collection is a model.
In South America the Patagonians use no canoes, but in the northern parts of the continent dug-out canoes are common. One described by Condamine, in 1743, was from 42 to 44 feet long, and only 3 feet wide. They are also used in Guiana, and Professor Wilson says that the dug-out canoe is used throughout the West Indian Archipelago. According to Bartram, who is quoted by Schoolcraft, the large canoes formed out of the trunks of cypress trees, which descended the rivers of Florida, crossed the Gulf, and extended their navigation to the Bahama Isles, and even as far as Cuba, carrying twenty to thirty warriors. Kalm, in 1747, gives some details respecting their construction on the Delaware river already referred to (p. 191), and says that the materials chiefly employed in North America are the red juniper, red cedar, white cedar, chestnut, white oak, and tulip tree. Canoes of red and white cedar are the best, because lighter, and they will last as much as twenty years, whereas the white oak barely lasts above six years. In Canada these dug-outs were made of the white fir. The process of construction on the west coast of North America has been already described (p. 192).
In Europe Pliny mentions the use of canoes hollowed out of a single tree by the Germans. Amongst the ancient Swiss lake-dwellers at Robenhausen, associated with objects of the stone age, a dug-out canoe, or Einbaum, made of a single trunk 12 feet long and 2½ wide, was discovered (Keller, Lake Dwellings, Lee2, p. 45). In Ireland, Sir William Wilde says that amongst the ancient Irish dug-out canoes were of three kinds. One was small, trough-shaped, and square at the ends, having a projection at either end to carry it by; the paddlers sat flat at the bottom and paddled, there being no rowlocks to the boat. A second kind was 20 feet in length and 2 in breadth, flat-bottomed, with round prow and square stern, strengthened by thwarts carved out of the solid and running across the boat, two near the stem and one near the stern. The prow was turned up; one of these was discovered in a bog on the coast of Wexford, 12 feet beneath the surface. The third sort was sharp at both ends, 21 feet long, 12 inches broad, and 8 inches deep, and flat-bottomed. These canoes are often found in the neighbourhood of the crannoges, or ancient lake-habitations of the country, and were used to communicate with the land; also in the beds of the Boyne and Bann. Ware says, that dug-out canoes were used in some of the Irish rivers in his time, and to this day I have seen paddles used on the Blackwater, in the south of Ireland. Professor Wilson says that several dug-out canoes have been found in the ancient river-deposits of the Clyde, and also in the neighbourhood of Falkirk. In one of those discovered in the Clyde deposits, at a depth of 25 feet from the surface, a stone almond-shaped celt was found. Others have been found in the ancient river-deposits of Sussex and elsewhere, in positions which show that the rivers must probably have formed arms of the sea, at the time they were sunk.
All vessels of the dug-out class are necessarily long and narrow, and very liable to upset; the width being limited by the size of the tree, extension can only be given to them by increasing their length. In order to give greater height and width to these boats, planks are sometimes added at the sides and stitched on to the body of the canoe by means of strings or cords, composed frequently of the bark or leaves of the tree of which the body is made. In proportion as these laced-on gunwales were found to answer the purpose of increasing the stability of the vessel, their number was increased; two such planks were added instead of one, and as the joint between the planks was by this means brought beneath the water line, means were taken to caulk the seams with leaves, pitch, resin, and other substances. Gradually the number of side planks increased and the solid hull diminished, until, ultimately, it dwindled into a bottom-board, or keel, at the bottom of the boat, serving as a centre-piece on which the sides of the vessel were built. Still the vessel was without ribs or framework; ledges on the sides were carved out of the solid substance of each plank, by means of which they were fastened to the ledges of the adjoining plank, and the two contiguous ledges served as ribs to strengthen the boat; finally, a framework of vertical ribs was added to the interior and fastened to the planks by cords. Ultimately the stitching was replaced by wooden pins, and the side planks pinned to each other and to the ribs; and these wooden pins in their turn were supplanted by iron nails.
In different countries we find representations of the canoe in all these several stages of development. Of the first stage, in which side planks were added to the body of the dug-out canoe, to heighten it, the New Zealand canoe, No. 1259 of my collection, is an example. Capt. Cook describes this as solid, the largest containing from thirty men upwards. One measured 70 feet in length, 6 in width, and 4 deep. Each of the side pieces was formed of an entire plank, about 12 inches wide, and about 1½ inch thick, laced on to the hollow trunk of the tree by flaxen cords, and united to the plank on the opposite side by thwarts across the boat. These canoes have names given to them like European vessels.
On the Benuwé, in Central Africa, Barth describes a vessel in this same early stage of departure from the original dug-out trunk. It consisted of ‘two very large trunks joined together with cordage, just like the stitching of a shirt, and without pitching, the holes being merely stuffed with grass. It was not water-tight, but had the advantage,’ he says, ‘over the dug-out canoes used on the same river, in not breaking if it came upon a rock, being, to a certain degree, pliable. It was 35 feet long, and 26 inches wide in the middle.’ No. 1258 of my collection is a model of one of these. The single plank added to the side of the Burmese dug-out canoe has been already noticed (p. 193). Although my informant does not tell me that these side planks are sewn on, I have no doubt, judging by analogy, that this either is or was formerly the case.
The Waraus of Guiana are the chief canoe-builders of this part of South America, and to them other tribes resort from considerable distances. Their canoe is hollowed out of a trunk of a tree, and forced into its proper shape partly by means of fire and partly by wedges, upon a similar system to that described in speaking of the Ahts of North America (p. 192) and the Burmese; the largest have the sides made higher by a narrow plank of soft wood, which is laced upon the gunwale, and the seam caulked. This canoe is alike at both ends, the stem and stern being pointed, curved, and rising out of the water; there is no keel, and it draws but a few inches of water. This appears to be the most advanced stage to which the built-up canoe has arrived on either continent of America, with the exception of Tierra del Fuego, where Commodore Byron, in 1765, saw canoes in the Straits of Magellan made of planks sewn together with thongs of raw hide; these vessels are considerably raised at the bow and stern, and the larger ones are 15 feet in length by 1 yard wide. They have also been described by more recent travellers. Under what conditions have these miserable Fuegians been led to the employment of a more complex class of vessel than their more advanced congeners of the north?
In order to trace the further development of the canoe in this direction, we must return to Africa and the South Seas. On the island of Zanzibar, Barbosa, in 1514, says that the inhabitants of this island, and also Penda and Manfia, who are Arabs, trade with the mainland by means of ‘small vessels very loosely and badly made, without decks, and with a single mast; all their planks are sewn together with cords of reed or matting, and the sails are of palm mats.’ On the river Yeou, near Lake Tchad, in Central Africa, Denham and Clapperton saw canoes ‘formed of planks, rudely shaped with a small hatchet, and strongly fastened together by cords passed through holes bored in them, and a wisp of straw between, which the people say effectually keeps out the water; they have high poops like the Grecian boats, and would hold twenty or thirty persons.’ On the Logon, south-east of Lake Tchad, Barth says the boats are built ‘in the same manner as those of the Budduma, except that the planks consist of stronger wood, mostly Birgem, and generally of larger size, whilst those of the Budduma consist of the frailest material, viz. Fogo. In both, the joints of the planks are provided with holes, through which ropes are passed, overlaid with bands of reed tightly fastened upon them by smaller ropes, which are again passed through small holes stuffed with grass.’ On the Victoria Nyanza, in East Central Africa, Grant speaks of ‘a canoe of five planks sewn together, and having four cross-bars or seats. The bow and stern are pointed, standing for a yard over the water, with a broad central plank from stem to stern, rounded outside (the vestige of the dug-out trunk), and answering for a keel.’
Thus far we have found the planks of the vessels spoken of, merely fastened by cords passed through holes in the planks, and stuffed with grass or some other material, and the accounts speak of their being rarely water-tight. Such a mode of constructing canoes might serve well enough for river navigation, but would be unserviceable for sea craft. Necessity is the mother of invention, and accordingly we must seek for a further development of the system of water-tight stitching, amongst those races in a somewhat similar condition of culture, which inhabit the islands of the Pacific and the borders of the ocean between it and the continent of Africa.
The majority of those vessels now to be described are furnished with the outrigger; but as the distribution of this contrivance will be traced subsequently (p. 218 ff.), it will not be necessary to describe it in speaking of the stitched plank-work.
In the Friendly Isles Captain Cook, in 1773, says ‘the canoes are built of several pieces sewed together with bandage in so neat a manner that on the outside it is difficult to see the joints. All the fastenings are on the inside, and pass through kants or ridges, which are wrought on the edges and ends of the several boards which compose the vessel.’ At Otaheite he speaks of the same process, and says that the chief parts are formed separately without either saw, plane, or other tool. La Perouse gives an illustration of an outrigger canoe from Easter Island, the sides of which are formed of drift-wood sewn together in this manner. At Wytoohee, one of the Paumotu, or Low Archipelago, Wilkes, in 1838, says that the canoes are formed of strips of cocoa-nut tree sewed together. Speaking of those of Samoa, he describes the process more fully. ‘The planks are fastened together with sennit; the pieces are of no regular size or shape. On the inside edge of each plank is a ledge or projection, which serves to attach the sennit, and connect and bind it closely to the adjoining one. It is surprising,’ he says, ‘to see the labour bestowed on uniting so many small pieces together, when large and good planks might be obtained. Before the pieces are joined, the gum from the husk of the bread-fruit tree is used to cement them close, and prevent leakage. These canoes retain their form much more truly than one would have imagined; I saw few whose original model had been impaired by service. On the outside the pieces are so closely fitted as frequently to require close examination before the seams can be detected. The perfection of workmanship is astonishing to those who see the tools with which it is effected. They consist now of nothing more than a piece of iron tied to a stick, and used as an adze; this, with a gimlet, is all they have, and before they obtained their iron tools, they used adzes made of hard stone and fish-bone.’ The construction of the Fiji canoe, called drua, is described by Williams in great detail. A keel or bottom board is laid in two or three pieces, carefully scarfed together. From this the sides are built up, without ribs, in a number of pieces varying from three to twenty feet. The edges of these pieces are fastened by ledges, tied together in the manner already described. A white pitch from the bread-fruit tree, prepared with an extract from the coco-nut kernel, is spread uniformly on both edges, and a fine strip of masi laid between. The binding of sennit with which the boards, or vanos, as they are called, are stitched together is made tighter by small wooden wedges inserted between the binding and the wood, in opposite directions. The ribs seen in the interior of these canoes are not used to bring the planks into shape, but are the last things inserted, and are for uniting the deck more firmly with the body of the canoe. The carpenters in Fiji constitute a distinct class, and have chiefs of their own. The Tongan canoes were inferior to those of Fiji in Captain Cook’s time, but they have since adopted Fiji patterns. The Tongans are better sailors than the Fijians. Wilkes describes a similar method of building vessels in the Kingsmill Islands, but with varieties in the details of construction. ‘Each canoe has six or eight timbers in its construction; they are well modelled, built in frames, and have much sheer. The boards are cut from the coco-nut tree, from a few inches to six or eight feet long, and vary from five to seven inches in width. These are arranged as the planking of a vessel, and very neatly put together, being sewed with sennit. For the purpose of making them water-tight they use a slip of pandanus leaf, inserted as our coopers do in plugging a cask. They have evinced much ingenuity,’ he says, ‘in attaching the uprights to the flat timbers.’ It is difficult, without the aid of drawings, to understand exactly the peculiarities of this variety of construction, but he says they are secured so as to have all the motion of a double joint, which gives them ease, and comparative security in a seaway.
Turning now to the Malay Archipelago, Wallace speaks of a Malay prahau in which he sailed from Macassar to New Guinea, a distance of 1,000 miles, and says that similar but smaller vessels had not a single nail in them. The largest of these, he says, are from Macassar, and the Bugi countries of the Celebes and Boutong. Smaller ones sail from Ternate, Pidore, East Ceram, and Garam. The majority of these, he says, have stitched planks. No. 1268 of my collection is a model of a vessel employed in those seas. Wallace says that the inhabitants of Ke Island, west of New Guinea, are the best boat-builders in the archipelago, and several villages are constantly employed at the work. The planks here, as in the Polynesian Islands, are all cut out of the solid wood, with a series of projecting ledges on their edges in the inside. But here we find an advance upon the Polynesian system, for the ledges of the planks are pegged to each other with wooden pegs. The planks, however, are still fastened to the ribs by means of rattans. The principles of construction are the same as in those of the Polynesian Islands, and the main support of the vessel still consists in the planks and their ledges, the ribs being a subsequent addition; for he says that after the first year the rattan-tied ribs are generally taken out and replaced by new ones, fitted to the planks and nailed, and the vessel then becomes equal to those of the best European workmanship. This constitutes a remarkable example of the persistency with which ancient customs are retained, when we find each vessel systematically constructed, in the first instance, upon the old system, and the improvement introduced in after years. I wonder whether any parallel to this could be found in a British arsenal. The psychical aspect of the proceeding seems not altogether un-English.
Extending our researches northward, we find that Dampier, in 1686, mentions, in the Bashee Islands, the use of vessels in which the planks are fastened with wooden pins. On the Menan, in Siam, Turpin, in 1771, speaks of long, narrow boats, in the construction of which neither nails nor iron are employed, the parts being fastened together with roots and twigs which withstand the destructive action of the water. They have the precaution, he says, to insert between the planks a light, porous wood, which swells by being wet, and prevents the water from penetrating into the vessel. When they have not this wood, they rub the chinks, by which the water enters, with clay. In the India Museum there is a model of a very early form of vessel from Burmah, described as a trading vessel. The bottom is dug out, and the sides formed of planks laced together. A large stone is employed for an anchor. Here we see that an inferior description of craft has survived, upon the rivers, in the midst of a higher civilization which has produced a superior class of vessel upon the seas.
Turning westward, we have the surf-boat of Madras, called massoola, which, on account of its elasticity, is still used on the seashore. Its parts are stitched together in the manner represented in the model, No. 1267 of my collection. On the Malabar coast the ships of the Pardesy, who consisted of Arabs, Persians, and others who have settled in the kingdom of Malabar, are described by Barbosa in 1514. They build ships, he says, of 200 tons, which have keels like the Portuguese, but have no nails. They sew their planks with neat cords, very well pitched, and the timber very good. Ten or twelve of these ships, laden with goods, sail every year in February for the Red Sea, some for Aden and some for Jeddah, the port of Mecca, where they sell their merchandise to others, who transmit it to Cairo, and thence to Alexandria. The ships return to Calicut between August and October of the same year. The earliest description we have of these vessels in this part of the world, in historic times, is in the account of the travels of two Mahomedans in the ninth century. In these travels it is related that there were people in the Gulf of Oman who cross over to the islands that produce coco-nuts, taking with them their tools, and make ships out of it. With the bark they make the cordage to sew the planks together, and of the leaves they make sails; and having thus completed the vessel, they load it with coco-nuts and set sail. Marco Polo, at the commencement of the fourteenth century, confirms this, and says, speaking of the ships at Ormuz, in the Persian Gulf, that they do not use nails, but wooden pins, and fasten them with threads made of the Indian nut. These threads endure the force of the water, and are not easily corrupted thereby. These ships have one mast, one sail, and one beam, and are covered with but one deck. They are not caulked with pitch, but with the oil and fat of fishes. When they cross to India they lose many ships, because the sea is very tempestuous, and they are not strengthened with iron. In the Red Sea, Father Lobo, in 1622, describes the vessels called gelves, which, he says, are made almost entirely of the coco-nut tree. The trunk is sawn into planks, the planks are sewn together with thread which is spun from the bark, and the sails are made of the leaves stitched together. They are more convenient, he says, than other vessels, because they will not split if thrown upon banks or against rocks.
We have now arrived in the region which is usually regarded as the cradle of Western civilization, certainly the land in which Western culture first began to put forth its strong shoots; and we must expect to find that the art of shipbuilding advanced in the same ratio as other trades. But, unlike the Phoenicians, the Egyptians confined their navigation chiefly to the Nile, and had an abhorrence of Typhon, as they termed the sea, because it swallowed up the great river, which, being the chief source of their prosperity, they regarded as a god.
Here it may be desirable to digress for one moment from the chain of continuity which we have been following, in order to say a few words about the most primitive form of vessel used on the Nile, viz. that mentioned by Isaiah (xviii. 2) as being of Ethiopian origin, the vessel of bulrushes to which the mother of Moses entrusted her infant progeny. What the coco-nut tree was to the navigators on the eastern seas, the papyrus was to the Egyptians, and from it every part of the vessel—rope, planks, masts, and sails—was constructed. Adverting to the earliest and simplest of these papyrus vessels, the common use for a bundle of faggots, for such it was, is not, perhaps, one of those coincidences which, viewed by the light of modern culture, we should select as evidence of connexion between distant lands. And yet there are peculiarities of form which make the bulrush float of the Egyptians worthy of comparison with those used in the rivers of Australia.
The Australian float, as represented by a model in the British Museum, consisted of a bundle of bark and rushes, pointed and elevated at the ends, and bound round with girdles of the same material. The only vessel, according to Mr. Calder, used in Tasmania, on the west coast, is thus described by him in the Journal of the Anthropological Institute, iii. 22. ‘It was of considerable size, and something like a whale-boat, that is, sharp-sterned, but a solid structure, and the natives, in their aquatic adventures, sat on the top of it. It was generally made by the buoyant and soft, velvety bark of the swamp tea-tree (Melaluca sp.), and consisted of a multitude of small strips bound together.’ Professor Wilson says that the Californian canoe consists of a mere rude float, made of rushes, ‘in the form of a lashed-up hammock.’ A woodcut in Sir Gardner Wilkinson’s Ancient Egypt, No. 399 of his work, represents three persons making one of these papyrus floats. It is the baris, or Memphite bark, bound together with papyrus, spoken of by Lucan, and it is of precisely similar form to those above described, elevated and pointed at the ends, and the men are in the act of binding it round with girdles. This is the kind of boat in which Plutarch describes Isis going in search of the body of Osiris through the fenny country; a bark made of papyrus. Pliny attributes the origin of shipbuilding to these vessels (vii. 56); and speaks (vi. 22) of their crossing the sea and visiting the Island of Taprobane (Ceylon, according to Sir G. Wilkinson); but it seems probable that he must refer to a more advanced form of vessel than the mere bulrush float.
The racial connexion between the Australians and the Egyptians, first put forward by Professor Huxley, has hardly met with general acceptance as yet; but, startling as it at first sight appeared, the more we look into the evidence bearing upon it, the less improbable, to say the least, it becomes, when viewed by the light of comparative culture. I have already shown, in another place,[222] how closely some of the Australian weapons correspond to some of those still used on the Upper Nile, and the remarkable resemblance here pointed out in a class of vessels which might well have been used in passing short distances from island to island of the now submerged fragments of land that are supposed to have formerly existed in parts of the southern hemisphere, is, at least, worthy of attention amongst other evidence of the same kind that may be collected, although I fully admit that it is not of a character to stand alone. I will not exceed my province by attempting to defend the theory of the Australioid origin of the Egyptians on physical grounds, preferring to leave the defence of that theory in the hands of its author, who is so well able to support his own views; but I may take this opportunity of commenting on some remarks made by Professor Owen in his valuable paper, published in the last number of our Journal, on the psychical evidence of connexion between them and the black races of the southern hemisphere. Adverting to the fresco painting, in the British Museum, of the ancient Egyptian fowler, who holds in his hand a stick, which he is in the act of throwing at a flock of birds, I am inclined to agree with Professor Owen in thinking there is nothing in its shape to denote that it is a boomerang. Other figures, however, in Rosellini’s Egyptian Monuments, show the resemblance more clearly, and if these are not enough, the specimen of the weapon itself in the glass case in the Egyptian room of the British Museum proves the identity of the weapon beyond possibility of doubt. I have elsewhere stated at length,[223] that having made several facsimiles of this weapon from careful measurements, so as to obtain the exact size, form, and weight of the original, for the purpose of experiment, I found that it possessed all the properties of the Australian boomerang, rising in the air, and returning in some cases to within a few paces of the position from which it was thrown. In fact, it was easier to obtain the return flight from this weapon than from many varieties of the Australian boomerang, with which I experimented at the same time.
But supposing the ancient Egyptian to be ‘convicted of the boomerang’, says the learned professor, ‘common sense repudiates the notion of the necessity of inheritance in relation to such operations.’ Against this I would urge, that the application of the general quality of common sense to the determination of questions of psychical connexion, between races so far removed from us, as the Australians or the predecessors of the earliest Egyptian kings, is inconsistent with all that we know of the phenomena of mental evolution in man, seeing that there must necessarily be many stages of disparity between them and any intelligent member of the Anthropological Institute to whose common sense this appeal was made.
If the common sense of the nineteenth century does not repudiate the fact that the steam engine, the electric telegraph, vaccination, free trade, and a thousand other contrivances for the benefit of our race, have sprung from special centres, and have been inherited, or otherwise received, by the highly cultivated races to which they have spread in modern times, neither would the common sense of the Australian or prehistoric Egyptian, after its kind, bar the likelihood of such contrivances as the boomerang, the parrying-shield, or the ‘baris’ having been handed from one savage people to another in a similar manner. Wherever two or three concurrent chains of connexion, whether of race, language, or the arts, can be traced along the same channel, such evidence is admissible, and is indeed frequently the only evidence available in dealing with prehistoric times.
The peculiar elevated ends of the papyrus floats are almost identical in form, but not in structure, with those now used in parts of India, especially on the Ganges; and the word junk is said to be related to juncus, a bulrush. Somewhat similar rafts, but flat, turned up in front but not behind, and called tankwa, are described by Lieut. Prideaux as being still used on Lake Tsana, in Soudan, and they are also used by the Shillooks, who make them of a wood as light as cork, called ambads (Anemone mirabilis). A paper by Mr. John Hogg, in the Magazine of Natural History (1829, ii. p. 324 ff.), to which my attention has been kindly drawn by Mr. John Jeremiah, contains some useful information on the subject of Egyptian papyrus vessels. Denon describes and figures a very primitive float of this sort, consisting of a bundle of straw or stalks, pointed and turned up in front, and says that the inhabitants of the Upper Nile go up and down the river upon it astride, the legs serving for oars; they use also a short double-bladed paddle. It is worthy of notice that the only other localities, that I am aware of, in which this double paddle is used, are the Sooloo Archipelago and among the Esquimaux. Belzoni also describes the same kind of vessel. Mr. Hogg, in his paper, gives several illustrations of improved forms of these solid papyrus floats, derived from a mosaic pavement discovered in the Temple of Fortune at Praeneste. From these it seems that they were bound round with thongs, pointed, and turned up and over at both ends. But Bruce, in 1790, describes more particularly the class of vessel used in Abyssinia in his time, called tankwa, or, as he writes it, tancoa, and says that it corresponds exactly to the description of Pliny (Nat. Hist., xiii. 2, compare v. 9). His description appears possibly to indicate that there was a separate line of development of hollow vessels derived from the flat raft. A piece of acacia tree was put in the bottom to serve as a keel, to which plants were joined, being first sewed together, then gathered up at the ends and stern, and the ends of the plant tied fast there. On Lake Tsana they are only turned up in front: see above. Belzoni describes a similar kind of vessel on Lake Moeris, which seems clearly to be hollow. The outer shell or hulk was composed of rough pieces of wood, scarcely joined, and fastened by four other pieces wrapped together by four more across, which formed the deck; no tar, no pitch, either inside or out, and the only preventive against the water coming in was a kind of weed which had settled in the joints of the wood. The only other locality, that I know of, in which similar vessels to these are used, is Formosa, a description of which is given by Mr. J. Thomson (The Straits of Malacca, Indo-China, and China, London, 1875, p. 304), for the sight of which I am indebted to Mr. W. L. Distant. He says: ‘We went ashore in a catamaran, a sort of raft made of poles of the largest species of bamboo. These poles are bent by fire, so as to impart a hollow shape to the raft, and are lashed together with rattan. There is not a nail used in the whole contrivance.’
But the boats ‘woven of’ the papyrus, mentioned by Pliny, certainly refer to something more complex than the papyrus bundle above described. Lucan describes them as being sewn with bands of papyrus, and Herodotus describes them more fully. This passage has been variously translated by different authors, but the version given by Sir Gardner Wilkinson is as follows:—‘they cut planks measuring about two cubits, and having arranged them like bricks, they build the boat in the following manner: they fasten the planks round firm long pegs, and, after this, stretch over the surface a series of girths, but without any ribs, and the whole is bound within by bands of papyrus.’ The exact meaning of this is obscure; but I would suggest, that as the ‘fastening within’ clearly shows it was not a solid structure, the more reasonable interpretation of it is by supposing that the planks, arranged in brick fashion, were fastened on the inside by cords, in the manner practised in the South Sea Islands and elsewhere. What the long pins were is uncertain; but as Sir Gardner Wilkinson says that the models found in the tombs show that ribs were used at a time probably subsequent to this, these pins may have been rudimentary ribs of some kind, and they also may have been ‘bound within’ to the planks in the same manner. It seems not unlikely that these boats may have also been bound round on the outside to give them additional strength, after the manner of the papyrus floats above described.[224] With this vessel, which was called baris, they used a sort of anchor, consisting of a stone with a hole in it, similar to one on a Burmese vessel, of which a model is in the India Museum.
The larger class of Egyptian vessels were of superior build, the planks being fastened with wooden pins and nails, and their construction somewhat similar to those still used on the Nile.
Returning now to the link of the chain to which we have appended this digression, and carrying our inquiries further northward into the area of Western civilization, it is to be expected that we should lose all trace of this primitive mode of ship-building. The earliest vessels recorded in classical history were fastened with nails. In Homer’s description of the vessel built by Odysseus, both nails and ribs were employed, and it had a round or a flat bottom (Smith’s Dict.). No trace of any earlier form of ship has been discovered in Europe, until we come to the neighbourhood of the North Sea. Here, in the Nydam Moss, in Slesvic, in 1863, was discovered a large boat, seventy-seven feet long, ten feet ten inches broad in the middle, flat at the bottom, but higher and sharper at both ends, having a prow at both ends, like those described by Tacitus as having been built by the Suiones, who inhabited this country and Sweden in ancient times. This vessel, from its associated remains, has been attributed to the third century A. D. The bottom consisted of a broad plank, about two feet broad in the middle, but diminishing in width towards each end. A small keel, eight inches broad and one deep, was carved on the under side of the plank, which corresponds to the bottom plank, which, in Africa and the Polynesian Islands, we have shown to be the vestige of the dug-out trunk. On to this bottom plank, five side planks, running the whole length of the vessel, were built, but they differed from those previously described in overlapping, being clinker-built, and attached to each other, not by strings or wooden pins, but by large iron bolts. The planks, however, resembled those of the southern hemisphere, in having clamps or ledges carved out of the solid on the inside; these ledges were perforated, and their position corresponded to rows of vertical ribs, to which, like the vessels at Ke Island, and elsewhere in the Pacific, they were tied by means of cords passing through corresponding holes in the ribs. Each rib was carved out of one piece, and, like those of Ke Island in the Asiatic Archipelago, could easily have been taken out and replaced by others after the vessel was completed. In short, the vessel represented the particular stage of development which may be described as plank-nailed and rib-tied, or which might be characterized as having removable ribs; differing in this respect from the more advanced system of modern times, in which the ribs, together with the keel, form a framework to which the planks are afterwards bent and fastened.
This mode of fastening the ribs to ledges carved out of the planking, Mr. Engelhardt, to whom we are indebted for the accurate drawings and description of this vessel,[225] remarks, is a most surprising fact, considering that the people who constructed the boat are proved by the associated remains to have been not only familiar with the use of iron, but to have been able to produce damascened sword-blades. But this fact, which, taken by itself, has been justly described as surprising, analogy leads us to account for, by supposing these particular parts of the vessel to have been survivals from a universally prevalent primitive mode of fastening, the nearest southern representative of which, at the present time, is to be found in the Red Sea and adjoining oceans. Nor can there be any reason to doubt, I think, that this mode of constructing vessels may have been used in the intervening countries, which have been the scene of the rise of Western civilization since the earliest times, but which have now lost all trace of the most primitive phases of the art of ship-building.
Mr. Engelhardt, however, traces a connexion between this ancient vessel, found in the Nydam Moss, and the Northland boats now used on the coast of Norway and the Shetland Isles, the peculiar rowlocks of which, and also the clincher-nails by which the sides are fastened, correspond very closely to those of the Nydam boat. Here also, and in Finland and Lapland, we find survivals of a still earlier mode of ship-building, corresponding to the more primitive plank-stitched vessels, before described, in so many places in the southern hemisphere. Regnard, in 1681, describes the Finland boats as being twelve feet long and three broad. They are made of fir, and fastened together with the sinew of the reindeer; this makes them, he says, so light that one man can carry one on his shoulders; others are fastened together with thread made of hemp, rubbed with glue, and their cords are of birch bark or the root of the fir. Outhier, in 1736, confirms this account of the manner in which they are sewn together, and says that it renders them very flexible, and suitable for passing cataracts, on account of their lightness, and because they do not break when they are cast against a rock. The Lapland sledge called pulea is also described by Regnard as being of the same construction—boat-shaped, and the parts sewn together with the sinew of the reindeer, without a single nail. I have not as yet been able to trace this mode of fastening vessels continuously in Russia; but Bell, in 1719, says that the long, flat-bottomed barks used on the Volga for carrying salt have not a single iron nail in their whole fabric; and Atkinson describes vessels on the Tchoussowaia which are built without nails, but these are fastened with wooden pins.
The use of bark for canoes might have been suggested by the hollowed trunk; but, on the other hand, we find this material employed in Australia, where the hollowed trunk is not in general use. Bark is employed for a variety of purposes, such as clothing, materials for huts, and so forth. Some of the Australian shields are constructed of the bark of trees. The simplest form of canoe in Australia consists, as already mentioned (p. 203), of a mere bundle of reeds and bark pointed at the ends. It is possible that the use of large pieces of bark in this manner may have suggested the employment of the bark alone. Belzoni mentions crossing to the island of Elephantine, on the Nile, in a ferry-boat which was made of branches of palm trees, fastened together with cords, and covered on the outside with a mat pitched all over. The solid papyrus boats represented on the pavement at Praeneste, before mentioned, have evidently some other substance on the outside of them; and Bruce imagines that the junks of the Red Sea were of papyrus, covered with leather.[226] The outer covering would prevent the water from soaking into the bundle of sticks, and thus rendering it less buoyant. Bark, if used in the same manner, would serve a like purpose, and thus suggest its use for canoe-building. Otherwise I am unable to conceive any way in which bark canoes can have originated, except by imitation of the dug-out canoe.
For crossing rivers, the Australian savage simply goes to the nearest stringy-bark tree, chops a circle round the tree at the foot, and another seven or eight feet higher, makes a longitudinal cut on each side, and strips off bark enough by this means to make two canoes. If he is only going to cross the river by himself, he simply ties the bark together at the ends, paddles across, and abandons the piece of bark on the other side, knowing that he can easily provide another. If it is to carry another besides himself, he stops up the tied ends with clay; but if it is to be permanently employed, he sews up the ends more carefully, and keeps it in shape by cross-pieces, thereby producing a vessel which closely resembles the bark canoe of North America (Wood, Nat. Hist. of Man, ii. 103). I have not been able to trace the use of the bark canoe further north than Australia on this side of the world, probably owing to its being ill adapted for sea navigation; nor do I find representatives of it in any part of Europe or Africa, although bark is extensively used, in the Polynesian Islands and elsewhere, for other purposes.
It is the two continents of America which must be regarded as the home of the bark canoe.
The Fuegian canoe has been described by Wilkes, Pritchard, and others. It is sewn with shreds of whalebone, sealskin, and twigs, and supported by a number of stretchers lashed to the gunwale; the joints are stopped with rushes, and, without, smeared with resin. In Guiana the canoe is made of the bark of the purple-heart tree, stripped off and tied together at the ends. The ends are stopped with clay, as with the Australians. This mode of caulking is not very effectual, however, and the water is sure to come in sooner or later.
The nature of the material does not admit of much variety in the construction; suffice it to say that it is in general use in North America, up to the Esquimaux frontier. Its value in these regions consists in the facility with which it is taken out of the water and carried over the numerous rapids that prevail in the North American rivers. The Algonquins were famous for the construction of them. Some carry only two people, but the canot de maître was thirty-six feet in length, and required fourteen paddlers. Kalm, in 1747, gives a detailed account of the construction of them on the Hudson river, and Lahontan, in 1684, gives an equally detailed description of those used in Canada. The bark is peeled off the tree by means of hot water. They are very fragile, and every day some hole in the bottom has to be stopped with gum.
Mr. T. G. B. Lloyd, in an excellent paper descriptive of the Beothucs of Newfoundland, published in Journ. Anthrop. Inst. (vol. iv. pp. 26-8), has described the remarkable bark canoe of these people. Its form is different from any other canoe of this or any other region that I have heard of, the line of the gunwale rising in the middle, as well as at the ends, and the vessel being V-shaped in section, with a straight wooden keel at the bottom. Its form is so singular, that the only idea of continuity which I can set up for it is, that it must have been copied from some European child’s paper boat, capable, by a single additional fold, of being converted into a cocked hat; the central pyramidal portion of the paper boat having given the form to the pyramidal sides of the Beothuc vessel. If this be rejected, then its history has yet to be told, for no native tribe ever employed such a peculiar form unless by inheritance.
Nos. 1248 and 1249 of my collection are South American bark canoes; Nos. 1250 to 1252 are bark canoes from North America.