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 2-1/2 wide, was
discovered (Keller, _Lake Dwellings_, Lee^2, 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.
_2. Vessels in which the Planks are Stitched to each Other._
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 1-1/2 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.