Part 26

De Guignes, in 1796, mentions a contrivance of this sort in the Philippines, but from the account, it is not quite clear whether he refers to a double weather platform, or a vessel with an outrigger and a weather platform. He says that the boats at Manilla are very sharply built, and furnished with yards, which serve as _balances_, on the windward side of which, when the wind blows hard, the sailors place themselves to counterpoise the effect of the wind on the sails. This contrivance does not, however, always ensure safety, for at times the bamboos which form the balance break, in which case the boat founders and the crew are lost. Dampier, however, in 1686, clearly speaks of the double weather platform at Manilla. He says that the difference between these Manilla boats and those at Guam, in the Ladrones, is that, whereas at Guam there is a little boat, fastened to the outriggers, that lies in the water, the beams or bamboos here are fastened transverse-wise to the outlayers on each side, and touch not the water like boats, but one, three, or four feet above the water, and serve for the canoe-men to sit and row and paddle upon. He says, that when the vessel reels, the ends of the platform dip into the water, and the vessel rights itself. Still further north, at Rangoon, on the Irrawaddy, we find the same contrivance described by Symes in 1795. He says that the boats are long and narrow, sixty feet in length, and not more than twelve in the widest place; they require a good deal of ballast, and would have been in constant danger of upsetting, had they not been provided with outriggers which, composed of thin boards, or oftener of buoyant bamboos, make a platform that extends horizontally six or seven feet on the outside of the boat from stem to stern. Thus secure, he says, the vessel can incline no further than until the platform touches the surface of the water, when she immediately rights; on this stage the boatmen ply their oars.

This constitutes one out of many points of evidence that might be mentioned, serving to show that the arts and culture of the Burmese, and of all this part of Asia, have been derived from the Malay Archipelago more probably than the reverse.

The outrigger canoe itself has never, I believe, been known on the Irrawaddy within the memory of man, but, as already seen, it is used in the Nicobar and Andaman Isles and on the coast to the south.

These outriggers, or balancing platforms, appear gradually to have diminished in size as the vessel increased in beam, and there can be little doubt that the rude stages or balconies outside the gunwales represented in the models of many of the larger vessels used in these seas are the last vestiges of the outrigger. No. 1278 of my collection is an example of this.

7. _Rudders, Sails, and other Contrivances._

All the various items of evidence which I have collected, and endeavoured to elucidate by means of survivals, whether in relation to modes of navigation or other branches of industry, appear to me to tend towards establishing a gradual development of culture as we advance northward. Although Buddhism and its concomitant civilization may have come from the north, there has been an earlier and prehistoric flow of culture in the opposite direction--northward--from the primaeval and now submerged cradle of the human family in the southern hemisphere. This, I venture to think, will establish itself more and more clearly, in proportion as we divest ourselves of the numerous errors which have arisen from our acceptance of the Noachian deluge as a universal catastrophe.

As human culture developed northward from the equator toward the 40th parallel of latitude, civilization began to bud out in Egypt, India, and China, and a great highway of nations was established by means of ships along the southern margin of the land, from China to the Red Sea.

Along this ocean highway may be traced many connexions in ship forms which have survived from the earliest times. The _oculus_, which, on the sacred boats of the Egyptians, represented the eye of Osiris guiding the mummy of the departed across the sacred lake, is still seen eastward--in India and China--converted into an ornamental device, whilst westward it lived through the period of the Roman and Grecian _biremes_ and _triremes_, and has survived to this day on the Maltese rowing-boats and the _xebecque_ of Calabria, or has been converted into a hawser-hole in modern European craft. The function of the rudder--which in the primitive vessels of the southern world is still performed by the paddlers, whilst paddling with their faces to the prow--was confided, as sails began to be introduced, to the rearmost oars. In some of the Egyptian sculptures the three hindermost rowers on each side are seen steering the vessel with their oars. Ultimately one greatly developed oar on each side of the stern performed this duty; the _loom_ of which was attached to an upright beam on the deck, as is still the case in some parts of India. In some of the larger Malay _prahaus_ there are openings or windows in the stern, considerably below the deck, by which the steersmen have access to two large rudders, one on each side; each rudder being the vestige of a side oar.

Throughout the Polynesian Islands the steering is performed with either one or two greatly developed paddles. Both in the rudder of the Egyptian sculptures and in the _gubernaculum_ of the Roman vessels, we see the transition from the large double oar, one on each side, to the single oar at the stern. The ship of Ptolemaeus Philopator had four rudders, each thirty cubits in length (Smith’s _Dict._, s. v. ‘Navis’). The Chinese and Japanese rudder is but a modification of the oar, worked through large holes in the stern of the vessel; which large holes, in the case of the Japanese, owe their preservation to the orders of the Tycoon, who caused them to be retained in all his vessels, in order to prevent his subjects from venturing far to sea. The _buccina_, or shell trumpet, which is used especially on board all canoes in the Pacific, from the coast of Peru to Ceylon, is represented, together with the _gubernaculum_, in the hands of Tritons in Roman sculptures (Smith’s _Dict._, s. v. ‘Navis’), and the shell form of it was preserved in its metallic representatives.

The sail, in its simplest form, consists of a triangular mat, with bamboos lashed to the two longer sides. In New Guinea and some of the other islands, this sail, which is here seen in its simplest form, is simply put up on deck, with the apex downwards and the broad end up, and kept up by stays fore and aft. When a separate mast was introduced, this sail was hauled up by a halyard attached to one of the bamboos, at the distance of about one-fifth of its length from the broad end, the apex of the bamboo-edged mat being fastened forward by means of a tack. By taking away the lower bamboo the sail became the _lateen_ sail of the Malay pirate _proa_, the singular resemblance of which to that of the Maltese galley of the eighteenth century (a resemblance shared by all other parts of the two vessels) may be seen by two models placed side by side in the Royal United Service Institution. Professor Wilson observes that the use of the sail appears to be almost unknown on either continent of America, and the surprise of the Spaniards on first seeing one used on board a Peruvian _balza_ arose from this known peculiarity of early American navigation (p. 218). Lahontan, however, in 1684, says that the Canadian bark canoes, though usually propelled by paddles, sometimes carried a small sail. He does not, however, say whether the knowledge of these has been derived from Europeans. Mr. Lloyd also mentions small sails used with bark canoes in Newfoundland.

The _crow’s-nest_, which in the Egyptian vessels served to contain a slinger or an archer at the top of the mast, and which is also represented in the Assyrian sculptures, was still used for the same purpose in Europe in the fifteenth century, was modified in the sixteenth century, and became the mast-head so well known to midshipmen in our own time. The two raised platforms, which in the Egyptian vessels served to contain the man with the fathoming pole in the fore part, and the steersman behind, became the _prora_ and the _puppis_ of the Romans, and the _forecastle_ and _poop_ of modern European vessels. The _aplustre_, which, in the form of a lotus, ornamented the stern of the Egyptian war-craft, gave the form to the _aplustre_ of the Greeks and Romans, and may still be seen on the stern of the Burmese war-boats at the present time.

* * * * *

All these numerous examples serve to show that where civilization has advanced the forms have been gradually changed; where, on the other hand, it has not advanced, they have remained unchanged. Sir Gardner Wilkinson and others have pointed out the striking resemblance between the boats of the ancient Egyptians and those of modern India. ‘The form of the stern, the principle and construction of the rudder, the cabins, the square sail, the copper eye on each side of the head, the line of small squares at the side, like false windows, and the shape of the oars of boats used on the Ganges, forcibly call to mind,’ he says, ‘those of the Nile, represented in the paintings of the Theban tombs.’ We have also seen (p. 214) that the inflated sheep-skin still serves to transport the Mesopotamian peasant across the Euphrates, as it did when Nimroud was a thriving city. The skin and wicker tub-shaped vessels still float down the Euphrates with their cargoes to Baghdad, are broken up, and the skins carried up the river again on mules, as they were in the time of Herodotus, upwards of 2,000 years ago. What is there to prevent our believing that the primitive vessels which we have been describing in the southern hemisphere, the representatives of some of which have been discovered in river deposits of the stone age in Europe, may have been in use in the countries in which they are now found, as long, and longer--far longer?

What reason is there to doubt that the rude bark-float of the Australian, the Tasmanian, and the Ethiopian; the catamaran of the Papuan; the dug-out of the New Zealander; the built-up canoe of the Samoan; and the improved ribbed vessel of the Ke islander, are survivals representing successive stages in the development of the art of ship-building, not lapses to ruder methods of construction as the result of degradation; that each stage supplies us with examples of what was at one time the perfection of the art, inconceivable ages ago? Some, as we have seen, especially the more primitive kinds, spread nearly all over the world, whilst others had a more limited area of distribution. Taken together, they enable us to trace back the history of ship-building from the time of the earliest Egyptian sculptures to the commencement of the art.

Nor does the interest of this inquiry confine itself to the development of ship-building. As affecting the means of locomotion, it throws light on the development of other branches of culture in early times. For even if we set aside exceptional instances in which individual canoes have been driven away to great distances--such as the case in which an Esquimaux in his kayak was picked up off the coast of Aberdeen, or that of a Chinese junk having been wrecked on the north-west coast of America, which might or might not have produced permanent results--and confine ourselves to those cases in which the distribution of like forms of vessels proves that there must probably have been frequent communication between shore and shore; and if we further assume, as I propose to do, that the existing means of communication in the Pacific in a great measure represents the amount of intercourse that took place across the sea in prehistoric times, that is to say, in times prior to the earliest Egyptian sculptures, we find no difficulty in accounting, by this means, for the striking similarity observable in the arts and ideas of savages in distant lands; for not only have these vessels been the means of conveying from place to place the material form of implements, such as celts, stone knives, and so forth, which, being imperishable, have been handed down to us unchanged, and the forms of which we know to have spread over large geographic areas; but also each voyage has conveyed a boat-load of ideas, of which no material record remains, in the shape of myths, religions, and superstitions, which have been emptied out upon the seashore, to seek affinity with other chatter that was indigenous to the place.

Thus, by means of intercommunication, no less than by spontaneous development, have been formed those numerous combinations which so greatly puzzle the student of culture at the present time.

FOOTNOTES:

[219] A Paper read at the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland on December 22, 1874, and published in the _Journal_ of the Institute, vol. iv (1875), pp. 399-435. (N.B.--This paper was not furnished by the author with either plates or references. The latter have been supplied, so far as possible, on pp. 229 ff.: for illustrations, reference should be made to the section on Navigation in the Pitt-Rivers Museum, Oxford.--ED.)

[220] (The _Catalogue of the Anthropological Collection lent by Col. Lane Fox to Bethnal Green Museum_ (London, 1874, parts i and ii) only contains ‘Weapons’; part iii was never issued.--ED.)

[221] _Notes and Queries on Anthropology, for the Use of Travellers and Residents in Uncivilized Lands_, drawn up by a Committee appointed by the British Association for the Advancement of Science (1874); 3rd edition, 1899, published by the Anthropological Institute, 3 Hanover Square, W.

[222] ‘Primitive Warfare,’ pp. 127-30, 148-51, above.

[223] Address to the Anthropological Department at the Brighton meeting of the British Association, 1872. _Report Brit. Assoc._ (London, 1873), p. 161.

[224] Since writing this I have seen the illustration in Sir H. Rawlinson’s note to this passage, in which he gives it as his opinion that this is the meaning and use to be ascribed to these pins; and he says that this system is still employed in Egypt, where they raise an extra bulwark above the gunwale. Rawlinson, _Herodotus_ (1862), vol. ii. p. 132.

[225] _Denmark in the Early Iron Age_, by Conrad Engelhardt (London, 1866), p. 31.

[226] ‘On Vessels of Papyrus,’ by John Hogg, Esq., M.A., F.L.S.; _Magazine of Nat. Hist._, vol. ii (1829), pp. 324-32: cf. p. 206, above.

NOTES TO ‘EARLY MODES OF NAVIGATION’

P. 189. Steinitz, _The Ship: its Origin and Progress_ (London, 1849), Pl. ii (frontispiece): cf. pp. ix, 4.

Gregory, ‘Expedition to the NW. coast of Australia,’ _Roy. Geogr. Soc. Journal_, xxxii. (1862) p. 376.

P. 190. Cook, _Voyages_ (ed. London, 1842), vol. i. p. 204.

Kitto, _Pictorial Bible_, note on 2 Sam. xix. 18.

Pliny, ix. 10 (cf. vi. 24); Diodorus, iii. 21, 5; Strabo, p. 773; turtle-shell boats were in actual use among the ‘Turtle-eaters’ (_Chelonophagi_) of Carmania and the islands of the Red Sea.

P. 191. Kalm, _Travels into North America_ (London, 1771), vol. ii. pp. 38-9.

Raleigh’s Expedition; Amadas and Barlawe, _The First Voyage to the Coasts of America_ (= Pinkerton (1811), vol. xii. p. 567).

Columbus, _The Journal of Christopher Columbus, &c._; transl. Markham (Hakluyt Society, 1893), p. 39, mentions dug-out canoes (cf. pp. 58, 94), but not the use of fire.

Mouat, _Adventures and Researches among the Andaman Islanders_ (London, 1863), pp. 315-6; only hand-hollowing in use in his time: no mention of Blair here: perhaps a verbal communication to the author.

Symes, _An Account of an Embassy to the Kingdom of Ava_ in 1795 (London, 1800), p. 320 (= Pinkerton (1811), vol. ix. p. 500).

Turner, _Nineteen Years in Polynesia_ (London, 1861), pp. 425-6.

P. 192. Wood, _Natural History of Man_ (London, 1868-70), vol. ii. p. 732.

P. 193. Wilkes, _United States Exploring Expedition_ (Philadelphia, 1845), vol. ii. p. 150 (Samoa); vol. v. p. 322 (Manilla); vol. v. p. 353 (Sooloo).

De Guignes, _Voyages à Peking, Manille, et l’Ile de France_ (Paris, 1808), vol. iii. p. 402.

De Morga, _The Philippine Islands_ (1609); transl. by Hon. H. E. Stanley (Hakluyt Society, 1868), p. 272; two types, (_a_) ‘made of one very large tree’; (_b_) ‘also _vireys_ and _barangays_ ... joined together with wooden bolts.’

Symes, _An Account of an Embassy to the Kingdom of Ava_ in 1795 (London, 1800), p. 320 (= Pinkerton (1811), vol. ix. p. 500).

P. 194. Turpin, _Histoire de Siam_ (Paris, 1771), vol. i. pp. 34-6.

Pietro della Valle, _Viaggi_ (Brighton, 1843), vol. i. pp. 602-3.

Duarte Barbosa (Magellan), _A Description of the Coasts of East Africa and Malabar_ (1514); transl. by Hon. H. E. Stanley (Hakluyt Society, 1866), p. 9.

Livingstone, _Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa_ (London, 1857), p. 64.

Barth, _Travels and Discoveries in North and Central Africa_ (London, 1857), vol. ii. p. 469; the tributary is the _Faro_; Yola is the adjacent town.

Grant, _Walk across Africa_ (London, 1864), p. 304.

Condamine, M. de la, _Relation abrégée d’un voyage fait dans l’intérieur de l’Amérique méridionale_ (Paris, 1745), p. 63 (at Laguna).

P. 195. Wilson, _Prehistoric Man_ (London, 1862), vol. i. p. 169.

Bartram, _Travels through N. and S. Carolina, Georgia, &c._ (London, 1792), p. 225.

Kalm, _Travels into N. America_ (London, 1771), vol. ii. pp. 240-2.

Pliny, xvi. 40 _Germaniae praedones singulis arboribus cavatis navigant, quarum quaedam et triginta homines ferunt._

Keller, _Lake Dwellings of Switzerland_ (transl. by J. E. Lee, 2nd ed., 1878), p. 45, Pl. x. 8.

Sir W. Wilde, _Catalogue of the Antiquities of the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy_ (Dublin, 1863), vol. i. pp. 202-4.

Ware, _The Antiquities and History of Ireland_ (London, 1705), p. 47.

Wilson, _Prehistoric Man_ (London, 1862), vol. i. pp. 153, 160.

P. 197. Cook, _Voyages_ (London, 1842), vol. i. p. 193.

P. 197. Barth, _Travels_ (London, 1857), vol. ii. p. 469.

Byron, _An Account of the Voyages undertaken ... for making Discoveries in the Southern Hemisphere ... by Commodore Byron, &c._, by John Hawksworth (London, 1773), vol. i. p. 79.

P. 198. Duarte Barbosa, _A Description_, &c. (Hakluyt Society, 1866), pp. 14-15.

Denham and Clapperton, _Travels in Northern and Central Africa_ (London, 1826), p. 60 (Denham).

Barth, _Travels_ (London, 1857), vol. iii. p. 293.

Grant, _Walk across Africa_ (London, 1864), p. 196.

P. 199. Cook, _Voyages_ (1842), vol. i. p. 425 (Friendly Islands); pp. 95-7 (Otaheite).

La Perouse, _Voyage autour du monde_ (Paris, 1897), Atlas, No. 61.

Wilkes, _United States Exploring Expedition_ (Philadelphia, 1845), vol. i. pp. 331-2 (Wytoohee); vol. ii. p. 157 (Samoa).

P. 200. Williams, _Fiji and the Fijians_ (London, 1858), vol. i. pp. 71-6.

Wilkes, l. c., vol. v. p. 52.

Wallace, _The Malay Archipelago_ (London, 1869), vol. ii. p. 159 (the long journey); p. 92 (nail-less boats); pp. 183-6 (the Ke islanders). [The author’s text has been amended to conform with the statements of Wallace.--ED.]

P. 201. Dampier, _A New Voyage round the World_ (London, 1729), vol. i. p. 429.

Turpin, _Histoire de Siam_ (Paris, 1771), vol. i. p. 36.

P. 202. Duarte Barbosa (Magellan), _A Description_, &c. (Hakluyt, 1866), pp. 147-8.

Marco Polo, _Travels_, transl. by Sir H. Yule (London, 1903), vol. i. p. 108.

P. 203. Lobo, _A Voyage to Abyssinia_ (London, 1735), p. 24.

Isaiah xviii. 2; see Kitto’s _Pictorial Bible_, note on 2 Sam. xix. 18.

P. 204. Wilson, _Prehistoric Man_ (1862), vol. i. p. 169.

Sir Gardner Wilkinson, _The Manners and Customs of Ancient Egypt_, 3rd ed., 1878, vol. ii. p. 208, No. 403 (No. 399, 1st ed.).

Lucan, _Pharsalia_, iv. 136 _Conseritur bibula Memphitica cymba papyro._

Plutarch, _de Iride et Osiride_, 18.

Pliny, vii. 56 _Nave primus in Graeciam ex Aegypto Danaus advenit: ante ratibus navigabatur, inventis in Mari Rubro inter insulas a rege Erythra_ (cf. ix. 10, and note on p. 190 above). _Reperiuntur, qui Mysos et Troianos priores excogitasse, cum transirent adversus Thracas. Etiam nunc in Britannico Oceano vitiles corio circumsutae fiunt: in Nilo ex papyro, et scirpo, et arundine._ [The quotation, as given in _J.A.I._, iv. 414, is inaccurate.--ED.]

Huxley, _Trans. Int. Congr. Preh. Arch._, Norwich, 1868 (London, 1869), p. 92; see also p. 147 above.

P. 205. Owen, _Journ. Anthrop. Inst._, vol. iv. p. 240.

Rosellini, _Monumenti dell’ Egitto e della Nubia_ (Pisa, 1834), Mon. Civ., Pl. cxix. 1, cxvii. 3 (= Plate XV. 109-11 herewith).

P. 206. Prideaux; Markham, _A History of the Abyssinian Expedition, with a chapter ... by Lieut. W. F. Prideaux_ (London, 1869), p. 101.

Denon, _Voyages dans la Basse et la Haute Égypte_ (London, 1807), vol. ii. p. 72.

Belzoni, _Narrative of Operations and Recent Discoveries ... in Egypt and Nubia_ (London, 1820), p. 62; (holds nine persons).

Bruce, _Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile_ (London, 1790), vol. v. p. 6.

P. 207. Pliny, xiii. 2 refers to wooden boats; v. 2 to wickerwork: _ibi Aethiopicae conveniunt naves: namque eas plicatiles humeris transferunt, quoties ad cataractas ventum est_.

Belzoni, _Narrative of Operations_ (London, 1820), pp. 380-1.

Pliny, v. 2 (above). Lucan, _Phars._ iv. 136 (above).

Herodotus, ii. 96. Wilkinson (Birch), 3rd ed., vol. ii. p. 307.

P. 208. Homer, _Odyssey_, v. 241-261. Smith, _Dict. Gr. and Rom. Antiq._, s. v. ‘Navis.’

Nydam boat. Engelhardt, _Denmark in the Early Iron Age_ (London, 1866), pp. 29-39, Pl. i-iv.

Tacitus, _Germania_, 44.

P. 210. Regnard, _Œuvres_ (Paris, 1854), vol. i, _Voyage de Laponie_, pp. 51, 100.

Outhier, _Journal d’un Voyage au Nord, en 1736 et 1737_ (Paris, 1744), pp. 60-1.

Bell, _Travels from St. Petersburg in Russia to diverse parts of Asia_ (Glasgow, 1763), vol. i. p. 168 ff.

Atkinson, _Oriental and Western Siberia_ (London, 1858), pp. 14-15.

P. 211. Belzoni, _Narrative of Operations, &c. ... in Egypt and Nubia_ (1820), p. 62.

P. 212. Wilkes, _U. S. Exploring Expedition_ (Philadelphia, 1845), vol. i. p. 127. [Pritchard.]

Kalm, _Travels into North America_ (London, 1771), vol. ii. p. 298.

Lahontan, _New Voyages to North America_ (London, 1735), vol. i. pp. 26-9.

P. 213. Lane-Fox (Pitt-Rivers), _Report of the British Association_, Brighton, 1872 (London, 1873), p. 163.

Steinitz, _The Ship: its Origin and Progress_ (London, 1849), Pl. xvi. 6.

P. 214. Layard, _Nineveh and its Remains_ (7th ed., London, 1848), vol. ii. pp. 381-2. Cf. Herodotus, i. 194.

Lempriere, _A Tour from Gibraltar to Tangier_ (London, 1793), p. 421.

P. 215. Herodotus, i. 194.

Kitto, _Pictorial Bible_, note on 2 Sam. xix. 18. Layard, l. c.

Hamilton (Alexander), _A New Account of the East Indies, 1688-1723_ (Edinb. 1727), vol. i. p. 88. They are described, even later, by Sir R. K. Porter, _Travels in Georgia_, &c., 1817-20 (London, 1821-2), vol. ii. p. 260; and figured in Rawlinson, _Herodotus_ (1862), vol. i. p. 268, after Chesney, _Expedition for the Survey of the Euphrates and Tigris_ (London, 1850), vol. ii.

Buchanan, _A Journey from Madras through the countries of Mysore, Canara, and Malabar_ (London, 1807), vol. ii. pp. 121, 141, 151, 163.

P. 216. Cook, _Voyages_ (London, 1842), vol. ii. pp. 303-4.

Frobisher, _The Three Voyages of Martin Frobisher_, ed. Collinson (Hakluyt Society, 1867), p. 384.

Kerguelen, _Relation d’un voyage dans la mer du Nord_ (Paris, 1771), pp. 178-9.

Kalm, _Travels into North America_ (London, 1771), vol. ii. p. 241; iii. p. 16.

Wilson, _Prehistoric Man_ (London, 1862), vol. i. p. 148.