horizontal.  The mast, which is very taunt, or lofty, supports a lug-sail of immense size, and is stepped exactly in midships, that is, at the same distance from both ends of the canoe.  The yard, also, is slung precisely in the middle; and while the tack of the sail is made fast at one extremity of the hull, the opposite corner, or clew, to which the sheet is attached, hauls aft to the other end.  Shrouds extend from the mast-head to the gunwale of the canoe; besides which, slender backstays are carried to the extremity of the out-rigger; and these ropes, by reason of their great spread, give such powerful support to the mast, though loaded with a prodigious sail, that a very slender spar is sufficient.

The method of working the sails of these canoes is as follows.  They proceed in one direction as far as may be deemed convenient, and then, without going about, or turning completely round as we do, they merely change the stern of the canoe into the head, by shifting the tack of the sail over to leeward, and so converting it into the sheet—­while the other clew, being shifted up to windward, becomes the tack.  As soon as these changes have been made, away spins the little fairy bark on her new course, but always keeping the same side, or that on which the out-rigger is placed to windward.  It will be easily understood that the pressure of the sail has a tendency to lift the weight at the extremity of the out-rigger above the surface of the water.  In sailing along, therefore, the log just skims the tops of the waves, but scarcely ever buries itself in them, so that little or no interruption to the velocity of the canoe is caused by the out-rigger.  When the breeze freshens so much as to lift the weight higher than the natives like, one, and sometimes two of them, walk out on the horizontal spars, so as to add their weight to that of the out-rigger.  In order to enable them to accomplish this purpose in safety, a “man rope,” about breast high, extends over each of the spars from the mast to the backstays.

But of all the ingenious native contrivances for turning small means to good account, one of the most curious, and, under certain circumstances, perhaps the most useful, is the balsa, or raft of South America, or, as it is called on some part of the coast, the catamaran.  The simplest form of the raft, or balsa, is that of five, seven, or nine large beams of very light wood, from fifty to sixty feet long, arranged side by side, with the longest spar placed in the centre.  These logs are firmly held together by cross-bars, lashings, and stout planking near the ends.  They vary from fifteen to twenty, and even thirty feet in width.  I have seen some at Guayaquil of an immense size, formed of logs as large as a frigate’s foremast.  These are intended for conveying goods to Paita, and other places along-shore.  The balsa generally carries only one large sail, which is hoisted to what we call a pair of shears, formed by two poles crossing at the top, where they are lashed together.  It is obvious that it would be difficult to step a mast securely to a raft in the manner it is done in a ship.  It is truly astonishing to see how fast these singular vessels go through the water; but it is still more curious to observe how accurately they can be steered, and how effectively they may be handled in all respects like any ordinary vessel.