HISTORY OF MARINE ARCHITECTURE.

109

discovered a solution of the so long disputed point, and controversy amongsceptics, that America was originally peopled from Europe by persons speakingthe Roman or Latin language. Totally foreign to the present enquiry wouldbe any attempt either to invite a controversy, or enter into a discussion of thispoint. Suffice it to say, that the circumstance is certainly a striking one, andthe similitude extending beyond that of mere terms and appellations, evenbetween the forms of construction adopted bv the ancient inhabitants of Ger-many, and the modern native navigators of the South Seas, must certainly

on round pieces of wood, and half their bodies are below the gunwale. Each man has an oar of a very-hard wood, and all row together, like galley-men, in one concordant motion ; or, if an individual pullstoo strongly, putting the boat out of its line, his mistake is so well counteracted by the man thatguides in the stern, that the whole seems to fly along the surface of the water, and cannot be longfollowed by any European vessel. When, on the other hand, the sea is high, they are unable to steer,the loftiness of the waves preventing their answering the helm. When the surf oversets them, theyhave the addiess to turn their boat in the water, to empty it, and re-iinbark, without running thesmallest danger, swimming all the time like fish. These canoes are generally about sixteen feet inlength, and one or two in width ; but there are some much larger, measuring even thirty-five feet inlength, five in width, and three in depth: they are flat at the stern, with a rudder and deck: the sailsare made of reeds, or of grass. The negroes do not leave their canoes in the water, but draw them onthe shore, and place them on four tressels : when dry, two men can carry a canoe on their shoulders.In shaping and hollowing the trunks they have felled, the negroes now use the hatchets that are soldro them by the Europeans. They narrow them toward the bottom, and cut each end to a point,giving it a small beak, of about a foot long, and. of a thickness adapted to the hand, for the purpose oflifting the canoe.

The canoes of Terra-del-Fuego, and the straights of Magellan, are of a peculiar construction. Thenatives take the bark of the largest trees, and bend it into shape with so much skill, that the vesselshave a considerable resemblance to the gondolas of Venice. For this purpose, they place it on a smallpiece of wood, as Europeans place a ship on the stocks ; and when the bark has taken the gondolaform, and the necessary bend, they line the bottom and sides, from one end to the other, with uprightpieces of thin wood, in the same manner as the parts or frames of a ship are put together: roundthe top of the deck another bandage of bark is drawn, in doing which the utmost care is takento fasten the whole together. These canoes are from ten to sixteen feet in length, and two inwidth , holding, with sufficient convenience, seven or eight men, who row standing, and with extremecelerity.

The canoe of Davis’s Streights are still more curious than the preceding. It is in the form of a barge,seven or eight feet in length, and two in width ; the materials made use of are pliant branches, bentand interlaced like a hurdle, and covered with the skins of sea-dogs, or wolves. This light boat carriesonly one man, who, seated in a hole formed in the middle of what, from this circumstance, appears tobe a deck, is enabled to fish, or to transport himself, with facility, and without much apparent danger,from one coast to another.

render