356 MAN: PAST AND PRESENT. [CHAP. 



has ever been found, and the list might be prolonged indefinitely 

 without discovering any cultural links between the two hemi- 

 spheres beyond such as may be traced to the Stone Ages, or to 

 the common psychic unity of the human family. Proofs need 

 not here be advanced of this sweeping statement, because it will 

 find its confirmation in the details that are to follow. 



One point only need detain us the complete absence in 

 America of any sailing vessels or other navigable appliances, 

 whether for inland or marine waters, at all comparable to those of 

 the eastern peoples. The Algonquians had their birch-bark 

 canoes, in the calm Peruvian waters rafts drifted with the tides 

 and currents, and it is somewhere mentioned that in the West 

 Indies the roving Caribs hoisted a rudimentary sail on their frail 

 craft when venturing from island to island. Can any more vio- 

 lent contrast be imagined than that presented by Prof. Flinders 

 Petrie's "New Race" already 5000 years ago decorating their 

 fictile vases with the device of "a long boat with two cabins, an 

 ensign pole, and many oars," and the rude representations of 

 the Eskimo, who despite their vicinity to Asia have still nothing to 

 show except the open skin kayak with its double paddle, or at 

 most the larger skin-covered umiak, or " woman's boat," with 

 which oars and sail may be used, but in which "the natives sit 

 with the face toward the bow, using the paddle and not an oar 1 ." 

 In fact all the American boats were mainly propelled by the 

 paddle, which replaced oar, rudder, and true sails, the rare refer- 

 ences to such contrivances occurring for the most part in later 

 times some years after contact with Europeans. On his fourth 

 voyage, however, Columbus met some fine canoes with room for 

 150 persons off the coast of Cuba; Pizarro also captured a large 

 vessel at Tumbez, which was said to have a sail and rudder, and 

 one or two other allusions are made by the early writers to canoes 

 with sail and rudder, or with sail and oars' 2 . If these statements 

 can be trusted, it may be inferred that in pre-Columbian times the 

 art of navigation had at least made a beginning amongst the Mayas, 



1 Dr W. J. Hoffman. The Graphic Art of the Eskimos, Washington, 1897, 



p. 847. 



2 Fr. Ratzel, The History of Mankind, Eng. ed. 1896, I. p. 41 sq. 



