We read of the skins of animals, stuffed with hay to keep them distended, having been used by Alexander the Great, and by others.

Goatskin rafts are extensively used on the Tigris and elsewhere.  These are inflated through one of the legs:  they are generally lashed to a framework of wood, branches, and reeds, in such a way that the leg is accessible to a person sitting on the raft:  when the air has in part escaped, he creeps round to the skins, one after the other, untying and re-inflating them in succession.

[Sketch fig. 1 and fig. 2 showing gourd rafts].

African Gourd Raft.—­Over a large part of Bornu, especially on its Komadugu—­the so-called River Yeou of Central Africa—­no boat is used, except the following ingenious contrivance.  It is called a “makara,” or boat pareminence.

Two large open gourds are nicely balanced, and fixed, bottom downwards, on a bar or yoke of light wood, 4 feet long, 4 1/2 inches wide, and 3/4 or 1 inch thick.  The fisherman, or traveller, packs his gear into the gourds; launches the makara into the river, and seats himself astride the bar.  He then paddles off, with help of his hands (fig. 1).  When he leaves the river, he carries the makara on his back (fig. 2).  The late Dr. Barth wrote to me, “A person accustomed to such sort of voyage, sits very comfortably; a stranger holds on to one of the calabashes.  There is no fear of capsizing, as the calabashes go under water, according to the weight put upon them, from ten to sixteen inches.  The yoke is firmly fastened to the two calabashes, for it is never taken off.  I am scarcely able, at present, to say how it is fastened.  As far as I remember, it is fixed by a very firm lashing, which forms a sort of network over the calabash, and at the same time serves to strengthen the latter and guard it against an accident.”  It is obvious that the gourds might be replaced by inflated bags or baskets, covered with leather, or by copper or tin vessels, or by any other equivalent.  I quite agree with Dr. Barth, that a makara would be particularly suitable for a traveller.  In Bornu, they make large rafts, by putting a frame over several of these makara, placed side by side.

[Sketch of sailing boat].

Rude Boats.—­Brazilian Sailing-boat.—­A simpler sailing-boat or raft could hardly be imagined than that shown in the figure; it is used by fishermen in Brazil.

Log Canoes are made by hollowing out a long tree by axe and by fire, and fastening an outrigger to one side of it, to give steadiness in the water.  Recollect Robinson Crusoe’s difficulty in launching his canoe after he had made it. (See “Rafts of Wood.”) It is not a difficult, though a tedious operation, to burn out hollows in wood; the fire is confined by wet earth, that it may not extend too far to either side, and the charred matter is from time to time scraped away, and fresh fire raked back on the newly-exposed surface.  A lazy savage sill be months in making a single canoe in this way.