206 OUR HERITAGE THE SEA 



But here, again, it is demonstrable that for some 

 hidden reason or another the earliest discoverers 

 of the value of the ocean as a common easy road, and 

 the inventors of the means whereby they might ex- 

 peditiously get their vessel along, it having reached a 

 given point in their progress, stuck there, and never 

 went any farther. So we may see them to-day. The 

 Chinese, probably the earliest navigators and in- 

 ventors of means to navigation, are now at the same 

 point as regards the rig and equipment of their vessels 

 as they were in the dim days before the dawn of 

 history. The Coromandel native, having evolved his 

 three-log catamaran from the floating tree, no one 

 knows how many centuries or even millenniums ago, 

 still sticks to it, unable, apparently, to devise any im- 

 provement. Even among peoples who are such near 

 neighbours as the various islanders of Polynesia, it is 

 curious to note how in one group there will be many 

 types of canoe, all pathetically showing limping pro- 

 gress from the tree-trunk, but none getting past the 

 rudimentary, experimental stage, while in another 

 group you shall find elaborately evolved vessels, with 

 decks and cabins, with careful arrangements to secure 

 stability, much ornamentation for the delight of the 

 eyes, and, above all, scientifically constructed masts, 

 sails, and rigging, every detail of which demonstrates 

 a high grade of inventive genius and constructive 

 skill, also of no mean order, especially remembering 

 the immense difficulties in the way of such people 

 producing these appliances out of their exceedingly 

 limited and primitive stock of materials. But great 

 as their progress undoubtedly must have been for a 

 time, it reached a limit far below that of seaworthiness 



