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.
3. _Bark canoes._
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.
4. _Canoes of Wicker and Skin._
As we approach the Arctic regions, the dug-out and bark canoes are
replaced by canoes of skin and wicker. As we have already seen, in the
case of the bow, and other arts of savages, vegetable materials supply
the wants of man in southern and equatorial regions, whilst animal
materials supply their place in the north.
The origin of skin coverings has been already suggested when speaking
of bark canoes. The accidental dropping of a skin bottle into the
water might suggest the use of such vessels as a means of recovering
the harpoon, which, as I have already shown elsewhere, was almost
universally used for fishing in the earliest stages of culture. The
Esquimaux lives with the harpoon and its attached bladder almost
continually by his side. The Esquimaux _kayak_, Nos. 1253 and 1254 of
my collection, in which he traverses the ocean, although admirable in
its workmanship, and, like all the works of the Esquimaux, ingenious
in construction, is in principle nothing more than a large, pointed
bladder, similar to that which is lashed to the harpoon at its side;
the man in this case occupying the opening which, in the bladder, is
filled by the wooden pin that serves for a cork.
This is, I believe, a very primitive form of vessel, although there
can be no doubt that many links in the history of its development have
been lost. Unlike the dug-out canoe, such a fragile contrivance as the
wicker canoe perishes quickly, and no direct evidence of its ancestry
can be traced at the present time. It is only by means of survivals
that we can build up the past history of its development; and these
are, for the most part, wanting.
The skin of an animal, flayed off the body with but one incision,
served, as I have elsewhere shown, a variety of purposes: from it
the bellows was derived, the bagpipes, water-vessels, and pouches of
various kinds; and, filled with air, it served the purpose of a float.
Steinitz, in his _History of the Ship_, gives an illustration of an
inflated ox skin, which in India is used to cross rivers; the owner
riding upon the back of the animal and paddling with his hands, as if
it had been a living ox.
In the Assyrian sculptures there are numerous illustrations
representing men floating upon skins of this kind, which they clasp
with the left hand, like the tree trunks, already mentioned, that are
used by the American Indians, and swim with the right. Layard says this
manner of crossing rivers is still practised in Mesopotamia. He also
describes the raft, composed of a number of such floats, made of the
skins of sheep flayed off with as few incisions as possible; a square
framework of poplar beams is placed over a number of these, and tied
together with osier and other twigs. The mouths of the sheep-skins
are placed upwards, so that they can be opened and refilled by the
raft-men. On these rafts the merchandise is floated down the river to
Baghdad; the materials are then disposed of and the skins packed on
mules, to return for another voyage. On the Nile similar rafts are
used, the skins being supplanted by earthen pots, which, like the skins
on the Euphrates, serve only a temporary purpose, and after the voyage
down the river are disposed of in the bazaars.
This mode of floating upon skins I should conjecture to be of northern
origin, and to be practised chiefly by nomadic races; but we find it
employed on the Morbeya, in Morocco, by the Moors, who no doubt had it
from the East. It is thus described by Lempriere, in 1789. A raft is
formed of eight sheep-skins filled with air, and tied together with
small cords; a few slender poles are laid over them, to which they
are fastened, and that is the only means used at Buluane to convey
travellers, with their baggage, over the river. As soon as the raft is
loaded, a man strips, jumps into the water, and swims with one hand,
whilst he pulls the raft after him with the other; another swims and
pushes behind. This reminds us of the custom of the Gran Chaco Indians
of South America, who, in crossing rivers, use a square boat or tub of
bull’s hide, called _pelota_. It is attached by a rope to the tail of
a horse, which swims in front; or the rope is taken in the mouth of an
expert swimmer.
I have not traced the distribution of these rafts of inflated skins as
continuously as, I have no doubt, they might be traced amongst nomadic
and pastoral races, moving with their flocks and herds, the skins of
which would be employed in this way; nor have I been able to trace
the connexion which, I have no doubt, existed between the inflated
skin and the open ‘curragh’ of wicker covered with skins. Where one is
found, the other is often found with it. Herodotus describes the boats
used by the people who came down the river to Babylon, and says they
are constructed in Armenia, and in the parts above Assyria, thereby
connecting them with the north. ‘The ribs of these vessels,’ he says,
‘are formed of willow boughs and branches, and covered externally with
skin. They are round, like a shield, there being no distinction between
head and stern. They line the bottom with reeds and straw, and taking
on board merchandise, chiefly palm wine, float down the stream. The
boats have two oars, one to each man: one pulls and the other pushes.
They are of different dimensions, some having a single ass on board
and others several. On their arrival at Babylon the boatmen dispose of
their goods, and offer for sale the ribs and straw; _they then load
the asses with the skins_, and return with them to Armenia, where they
construct new boats’--just as is now done with the inflated skins of
the rafts at Baghdad.
In the Pictorial Bible an illustration is given from the Sassanian
sculptures at Takht-i-Bostan of several of these round vessels,
probably of wicker, covered with skins. In one of these the principal
figure carries a composite bow, which, as I have elsewhere shown, is of
northern origin. Mr. Layard discovered in Nimroud a sculpture in which
one of these boats is represented. It is round, like those described
by Herodotus; back and stern alike; carrying two people, one of whom
pulls and the other pushes; and in the same sculpture are represented
men swimming on the inflated sheep-skins. He says that these same
round vessels are still used at Baghdad, built of boughs and timber
covered with skins, over which bitumen is smeared to render it more
water-tight. [Hamilton] also speaks of the same vessels (of reeds
and bitumen) on the Euphrates, at the commencement of the eighteenth
century.
On the Cavery, in Mysore, Buchanan, in 1800, describes ferry-boats
that are called _donies_, which are circular baskets covered with
leather; but whether these vessels, like the composite bow used in the
same region, can be traced to a northern origin I have not the means
of determining, nor have I as yet sufficient materials to enable me
to ascertain whether such vessels are employed in the north of Asia
at the present time. What the inflated skin is to these circular
vessels, the _kayak_ is to the _baidar_ of the Esquimaux. Throughout
the whole region occupied by this race, these two kinds of vessels are
used, differing only in minute varieties of detail in the different
localities. According to Dr. King, whose valuable paper, ‘On the
Industrial Arts of the Esquimaux,’ was published in the first volume of
the _Journal of the Ethnological Society_ (1848), the varieties of the
_kayak_ in the different localities consist merely in the elevation and
shape of the rim of the hole in which the man sits. In Prince William
Sound, on the NW. coast, the _kayak_ is frequently built with two or
three holes to contain two or three men. The bow has two beaks, one of
which turns up, according to Captain Cook, like the head of a violin,
as represented in No. 1254 of my collection. This is also used in the
Aleutian Isles. The meaning of this double beak I have not been able to
ascertain. The _baidar_ used on this coast has also a double beak, as
represented in No. 1255 of my collection.