34 FOLLOW THE WHALE 



of departure, having an entirely different origin and quite another 

 history, in which the whale did not at first figure but which later be- 

 comes of the utmost importance to our story. This was the ship- 

 ping invented by the peoples who dwelt upon the banks of great 

 rivers. These early navigators had only the river's current to con- 

 tend with, while hazards such as storms, tides, and fog, that are of 

 first importance to mariners, were to them of Httle or no account. 

 The form of the first boats used on rivers depended upon the ma- 

 terials available for their construction. One was undoubtedly a cir- 

 cular, tubhke thing made of skins on a wattle frame, like the boats 

 still in use upon the Euphrates today. On the Nile a craft analogous 

 to the shasha but made of bundles of papyrus-reed stalks was ap- 

 parently the earliest form and may still be seen in use on the Sudds 

 in the Sudan, while in India small log rafts, than which there could 

 be nothing more primitive, are still employed in some areas. Thus 

 we see that substantially the same three types of primitive craft 

 originated both on the great rivers and on the open coasts — skin 

 boats, fiber-bundle boats, and log-raft boats. The subsequent de- 

 velopment of each on the sea and on the rivers was, however, not 

 the same, though in many respects it took a parallel course and has 

 now reached virtually the same ends, though even today we may 

 still recognize certain differences in construction and design be- 

 tween the mighty steel descendants of the two types. 



Thus shipping, as opposed to seamanship, has two quite separate 

 origins, one maritime, the other terrestrious, and this is of the ut- 

 most significance to our tale, and to the whole history of whaling. 

 These two types of shipping may be defined as the riverine-gulfine 

 and the peninsular-insular, for the one started on rivers and then 

 debouched into gulfs and other confined seas, while the other began 

 on open coasts and promontories and then went directly upon the 

 open sea towards other peninsulas or islands. It is impossible to say 

 which is the older and they may have had contemporary begin- 

 nings, but while the riverine folk progressed faster in civilization, 

 the maritime peoples seem always to have surpassed them in ship- 

 building and in seamanship. This statement is perhaps a platitude, 

 but it is, nonetheless, frequently ignored, while it alone often ex- 

 plains the collapse of empires and the sudden appearance of hitherto 

 unheard-of peoples in ships upon the pages of history. 



