TRANSPORT BY WATER This usually requires less effort than transport by land, and is often more highly developed among primitive peoples. The earliest type of boat is the raft, made of grass, logs of wood, bundles of reeds or other light materials tied together, on which man can float. Such was the "raft" of the Tasmanians, made of eucalyptus bark tied in cigar-shaped bundles 9 or 'oft. long, thinning at either end. Similar floating rafts of varying materials were used by early Egyptians on the Nile, and by the Inca on Lake Titicaca. The Jarawa on the small island of South Andaman have no canoes, but lash bamboos together to form rafts for crossing creeks or inlets; the Semang of the Malay Peninsula float down rivers by the same means, returning overland. In Africa, as in Mexico and Peru, large gourds are used for ferrying. On the Hadeija (running into Lake Chad) the Hausa ferrymen, balanced on a calabash, paddle themselves across with arms and legs, earning for themselves the name of jernage or "bats"; for transport guinea corn stalks (Sorghum) are laid across the cala bashes to make a platform. Inflated skins take the place of gourds among the pastoral people of western Asia or north Africa, and inverted pots are used to support the rafts for ferrying across the Nile river. Another primitive type of boat found on the Tigris or Euphrates is the round gufa, made of basket-work, cov ered with skins coated with bitumen which was described by Herodotus (i. 194). The coracles of the ancient Briton, described by Pliny and still used in Wales and round the coasts of Ireland, the skin-covered canoes used by hunters in British Columbia, the "bull-skin boats" in the western States of America are varying developments of the same type.
The finest examples of skin boats are the Eskimo umiak and kayak. The umiak is often called the "woman's boat," but, except in Greenland, it is more used by men than women, and is the boat commonly used for hunting large game. It may be from o to 2oft.
long, with wide flat bottom, broad spread, and little distinction between stem and stern. The framework, lashed together with sealskin thongs, is covered with large seal skins strongly stitched together and put on green so that they shrink tight. The cover is
lashed to the gunwale, and can be tightened as it stretches in get ting wet. The kayak is seldom used for transport, but is essentially hunting and fishing equipment. It is made in the same way as the umiak, but is entirely enclosed in skins save for a small hole. It may be 25ft. long, but is only just wide enough to contain the hunter, who in his waterproof coat slips into the central hole, ties the string of his coat round the rim, and is absolutely impervious in his buoyant craft ; he can travel at twice the pace of a two-man canoe, and ventures out in a rough sea. Skin boats are more fitted for temporary than for permanent use; great care has to be taken in beaching them, while, if left in the water, the skins soon rot. Both kayak and umiak are rapidly dying out.
Where suitable trees of good size are found a simple type of boat is made of a sheet of bark. The Lillooet canoes of British Columbia were formerly always of bark, poplar, cottonwood, spruce, cedar or birch. In the spring two rings were cut round the trunk and a line connecting them, and the bark was pried off in one piece. This was fixed to a wooden framework by sewing with root-fibres, and all the crevices were caulked with moss and gum. The Australian bark canoes are of eucalyptus. A large sheet is peeled off, the ends are turned up, and either tied or sewed, and the joints caulked with resin.
The boat made out of a solid tree-trunk has many advantages. In Melanesia (Kiwai island) there is a tradition of the time when the only craft consisted of a solid log or tree trunk balanced by double outriggers supporting a platform fixed to sticks driven into the trunk. This type may everywhere have been the precursor of the hollowed log, but dug-outs are so widely distributed in time and space that their origins are forgotten. Ancient dug-out canoes, sometimes 5o to 6oft. long, are found in British peat bogs, but it is not possible to date them with any precision, and metal tools were probably used in their construction, though stone adzes are still preferred by the canoe makers of New Guinea.