Canoes are largely used in India as ferry boats, and have shapes and forms to suit the rivers and waters. Small canoes are formed of hollow palmyra tree, two of which lashed to a couple of spars form the usual mode of crossing lakes and rivers in the Circars ; the root forms the head of the canoe, the smaller end is either elevated out of the water by the form, or some six inches of the pith is left at that end. As this decays, a lump of clay supplies its place. Formerly, seagoing vessels were planked with this wood, but the iron fasten ings are soon destroyed. Boats planked with i t were till lately common on the Godavery, being built probably where sawyers were not procurable. Canoes of Calicut are hewn out of the trunk of the jack-fruit tree, Artocarpus integrifolia. Canoes of Point de Gallo and the Malabar coast have weather-boards on an outrigger in the form of a smaller canoe ; they are sharp at both ends, and beat to windward without tacking. The Jangar of the Malabar coast, for rivers, is a kind of canoe.
The Point de Galle Canoe, or Market Boat, is formed from a single stem of dup wood, or piney varnish-tree. They are from eighteen to thirty feet in length, from eighteen inches to two and a half feet in breadth, and from two or three feet deep, exclusive of the wash-board, which is about ten inches broad, and sewed to the gunwale by coir yarns, with loose coir padding on the joints, in the same manner as the other boats used in India are sewed together, which will be more fully described below. These boats are fitted with a balance log at the end of the bamboo outrigger, having the mast, yard, and sail secured together, and, when sailing, are managed in a similar way to the Catamarans. Vessels passing the southern part of the island of Ceylon are generally boarded by these boats, even at the distance of twenty to twenty-five miles from shore. They will sail at the rate of ten miles an hour in strong winds, which are generally prevalent there, and with a crew of five men. As the outrigger must always be kept to windward, and shifting it from side to side would be impossible, the canoe is so con structed as to proceed with either end foremost. This form of canoe is common wherever the Malays have extended themselves, throughout Polynesia and the coral islands of the Pacific, and to Mada gascar and the Comoros, where a Malay colony settled. The great canoes of Ceylon called Ballam or Vallam are usually made of the Arto carpus hirsuta, the angely or angelica tree.
Madras Masula Mande is used all along the eastern coast of the Peninsula. It. is formed with a flat bottom, for the purpose of taking the beach in the surf, when European boats cannot approach it. These boats are beached in the third surf, and taken most completely out of the water, on the immediate receding of the swell, by natives. They are 30 to 35 feet long, 10 to 11 feet broad, and 7 to 8 feet in depth. Their planks are sewed together with coir yarns, crossing the seams over a wadding of coir, which presses on the joints, and prevents leakage. By this peculiar means of security, remains pliable, and yields to the shock which it receives on taking the ground ; whilst boats with framed timbers and planks, nail or trenail fastened, would bo broken to pieces from the heavy surf, that at times runs as high as from six to ten feet. The Catamaran can be kept in attendance as a lifc•preserver in the event of any accident to the Masula boat by upsetting, or in case of any of the Europeans being washed out by the surf. The crews of the Maxilla boats are brave, self-reliant men. The Masula boats receive their cargoes and passengers from the ships outside the surf, and land them in perfect. safety. They are rowed by twelve men, in double banks, with paddles, that is, a board about ten inches broad and fourteen inches long, fixed at the end of n pole. They are steered by a tindal (cock swain), and one or two men constantly baleout the water. The steersman gives time by a song, which is sung by all the boatmen, and, according as its modulations are slow or quick, the oars are plied. These modulations are regulated by the waves, as they may be slow or rapid in succession.
The Ganges boats are the Budgerow, Boleah, Panswah,Palwar, Puteli, Bhur, Oolak, and Dengi. The bulky Oolitic, or baggage boat of Bengal, is sometimes as large as the Puteli, and used for the same purposes. The Palwar and Bhur are sea going ships.
The That'll is a large boat used for goods traffic.
The Palwar, also a cargo boat, from 15 to 20 tons burden, was originally built at Dacca.
All the common arts and manufactures of Bengal are carried on at Dacca, but in none of them do the Dacca workmen show more superior skill than in that of boat-building. For their work in this art they have been celebrated since the reign of Jahangir, when the Nowarrah was established here for the protection of the lower districts of Bengal against the incursions of the Mughs of Arakan.