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 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.