“Iron rowlocks were fitted to it, on the outside at b, e, fig.  I. (I do not give the diagram by which the author illustrated his description; the rowlocks were applied to the sides of the boat, and each rowlock was secured to the side by three bolts.) The two upper bolts had claw-heads to seize the iron-rod gunwale on the inside, and a piece of wood was fitted on the inside, through which the three bolts passed, to give substance for their hold, their nuts were on the outside.  With these rowlocks two oars of 7 feet long were used.  The breadth between the horns should be only just enough to admit the oars.

“This boat could be carried on the shoulders of two persons, when suspended on a pole passed through the end rings, for a distance of twelve or fifteen miles daily, with guns and ammunition stowed in it.  It could be fired from, standing, without risk, and be poled over marshy ground barely covered with water, or dragged with ease by the person seated in it, through high reeds, by grasping a handful on each side and hauling on them.  A rudder was unnecessary.  It was in use for more than three years, and with due care in getting in and out, on a rough shore, and by keeping it well painted and pitched, it never leaked or became impaired in any way.”

Boats.—­Of Wood.—­English-made boats have been carried by explorers for great distances on wheels, but seldom seem to have done much useful service.  They would travel easiest if slung and made fast in a strong wooden crate or framework, to be fixed on the body of the carriage.  A white covering is necessary for a wooden boat, on account of the sun:  both boat and covering should be frequently examined.  Mr. Richardson and his party took a boat, divided in four quarters, on camel-back across the Sahara, all the way from the Mediterranean to Lake Tchad.  A portable framework of metal tubes, to be covered with india-rubber sheeting on arrival, was suggested to me by a very competent authority, the late Mr. M’Gregor Laird.

Copper boats have been much recommended, because an accidental dent, however severe it may be, can be beaten back again without doing injury to the metal.  One of the boats in Mr. Lynch’s expedition down the Jordan was made of copper.

Corrugated Iron makes excellent boats for travellers; they are stamped by machinery:  Burton took one of them to Zanzibar.  They were widely advertised some ten years ago, but they never came into general use, and I do not know where they can now be procured.

Canoes.—­The earlier exploits of the ‘Rob Roy’ canoe justly attracted much attention, and numerous canoe voyages have subsequently been made.  The Canoe Club is now a considerable institution, many of whose members make yearly improvements in the designs of their crafts.  Although canoes are delicately built and apparently fragile, experience has amply proved that they can stand an extraordinary amount of hard usage in the hands of careful travellers.  As a general rule, it is by no means the heaviest and most solid things that endure the best.  If a lightly-made apparatus can be secured from the risk of heavy things falling upon it, it will outlast a heavy apparatus that shakes to pieces under the jar of its own weight.