Teegeak. — Polynesian Knmuledge of Cattle. 463 



company. Next came sailing clown an individual lying much 

 at his ease between the four legs of a huge buffalo's hide, 

 while boys moved in all directions, mounted as they could, 

 some on gourds and some on skins." 



Thus, then, kau and vaka had passed from the animal to 

 inflated hide. From this form, doubtless, men went on to the 

 discovery that the skin itself needed not to be inflated, but 

 that, if bound to a framework in the shape of a hemisphere, it 

 would buoy up the contents, if not buried above the water- 

 line. Herodotus ("Cho," 94) says, " The most wonderful thing 

 of all here, next to the city itself, is what I now proceed to 

 describe : Their vessels that sail down the river to Babylon 

 are circular, and are made of leather. For, when they have 

 cut the ribs out of willows that grow in Armenia above 

 Babylon, they cover them with hides extended on the outside 

 by way of a bottom.'"'' Thus the idea has grown from the 

 Hving water-loving animal, the type of the " good swimmer," 

 whose tail is held by the herdsman, to the " inflated hide," 

 and then to the wicker boat covered with leather, used from 

 Babylon to Britain.! 



The journey of the westward-migrating Aryans was across 

 the great continent of Europe, where, even had they been a 

 navigating people, boats could not have been carried ; but 

 they surely had, in the herds which accompanied them in 

 their slow irresistible movement onwards, their time-honoured 

 means of crossing any rivers on their march.:]: 



The word vaka, for boat, has been retained in the Euro- 

 pean languages, although unrecognised, because disguised by 

 the slight letter-change of v to &,§ and by the broad vulgar- 

 ised r. We bave it in English bark, barque, and barge. Pro- 

 fessor Skeat ("Ety. Diet."), although noticing that "it is re- 

 markable how widespread the latter word (barque) is," does not 

 seem able to find the etymology, but suggests as possible the 

 Egyptian bari, a boat. "When we consider the Gaelic barca ; 

 Latin, Spanish, and Italian barca, boat ; Danish barkasse, long 



* The Polynesian word kiliov kiri ( ^ KIL or KIR), meaning " skin," 

 seems to be related (in sound) to the name of these skin-boats. The 

 boats on the Tigris (PI. XXXVI., fig. 1) are called kellek, or kilct. The 

 boat of the Ancient Briton was — Gaelic curach, Welsh civrwg, a frame, a 

 carcass, a boat (coracle). English, keel, a boat (" Merry may the keel 

 row ") ; Anglo-Saxon, ceol, a ship (Teutonic base, keitla) ; ]\Ialay, kolek, 

 canoe; Persian, kirmu canoe, kirei) ship; Anc. >Slav., Jcorabi, ship; 

 Polish, korah, from kora, bark. 



t Cf. (obsolete) English co^i', a tub: Scottish co2;'«7j, a fishing-boat ; 

 skow, a small boat made of willow covered with skin (Jamieson) : Persian, 

 kaurib, a boat. 



+ Cf. Maori kahu-paiM, a raft ; Fijian katca-katva [gava), a bridge. 



§ As Sanscrit varvara = pappapa ; habere becomes avoir. Latin 

 MSS. often vary from xixit to hUit, vene to bene, &c. 



