SOME SOUTH AMERICAN FISHES 149 



log of wood, with her navigator clinging on for 

 all he was worth. It is no figure of speech to 

 describe her as a log, or rather several logs of 

 wood. A jangada is a raft made of trunks of 

 light-wooded trees, six inches in diameter, straight, 

 and uniform in size. These are stripped of their 

 bark, sharpened at each end, and firmly pegged 

 together by three rows of transverse wooden 

 pins. Six trunks are usually employed, but the 

 jangada I refer to had ten, her dimensions being 

 twenty feet long by five feet wide. A little stool 

 at one end served for the steersman, paddle in 

 hand, while a larger one amidships was used by 

 passengers, and a slender mast (sometimes there 

 are two masts) supported a large sail like the lateen 

 of the Mediterranean feluccas, which sent the 

 craft along at very good speed, of course wetting 

 everybody through and through, which, luckily, 

 in those warm waters did not much matter. 



The fishing jangadas, or catamarans, 1 were 

 similar in construction, but still more primitive, 

 often having neither sail nor stool, the centre 

 being occupied by a gigantic earthenware jar full 

 of sea-water, into which the solitary fisherman, 



1 So called in India. In Cingalese it is "catha-maran," 

 i.e., floating trees. 



