IN THE LAND OF THE BORA. 117 



canals are all embanked, and fitted with pumping 

 machinery driven either by steam or by windmills. 

 Such an expense the central government is very 

 unlikely to sanction. 



The inhabitants of the district, though resem- 

 bling the other Morlaks of the coast in dress and 

 manners (perhaps I should rather say want of 

 manners), are essentially fenmen. What the 

 mule is to the peasant of the Poglizza the dug-out 

 is to the marsh- dweller of the lower Narenta. I 

 use the term " dug-out," which is so usually mis- 

 applied to small rude craft, but the canoes here 

 are really made of separate planks roughly nailed 

 together and tarred. The means of propulsion are 

 single-bladed paddles, used exactly as they are by 

 the Canadian voyageur. Only, as the Morlak, 

 when alone, rarely sits so far astern as the western 

 man, he is obliged frequently to shift his paddle 

 over to the left side, which the Canadian scorns 

 to do. Two people in the same boat invariably 

 paddle on opposite sides here. Apparently they 

 have yet to learn that this greatly increases the 

 difficulty of steering. Men, women, and children 

 seem equally at home in their canoes, and may be 

 seen going to the town with loads of rushes, fire- 

 wood, or even live stock — these latter, of course, 

 securely bound. For their crops, manure, and so 

 forth, they have boats some twenty-five feet long, 

 exactly the shape of the bowl of a spoon. When 



