CURIOUSLY-COXSTRUCTED BOATS. 179 



orthodox fasliion for royalty. It will be remembered that 

 the pap}Tus of the Nile was applied to similar uses by the 

 Egyptians. Papyrus boats are frequently noticed by ancient 

 writers. Plutarch describes Isis going in search of the body 

 of Osiris, " through the fenny country in a barque made of 

 the papyrus." '" See also Isa. xviii. 2. 



On the south-east coast of Madagascar, I was much inter- 

 ested to find that in the lagoons and river mouths, as well 

 as for going out to sea to the foreign vessels, a most ingeni- 

 ously constructed boat is employed instead of the ordinary 

 canoes. These boats are called sitry, and are huilt of planks 

 carefully fitted together, and with the ends rising rather high 

 like that of a whale-boat. They are about thirty feet long 

 by eight feet beam, and easily carry fifty people. But the 

 strangest circumstance is that no nail or iron of any kind is 

 employed in its construction, the planks are all tied together 

 with twisted cord of anhona palm fibre, a very tough and 

 durable material, the holes being plugged with pins of hard 

 wood. There is no framework to which the planking is fixed, 

 l)ut the seats act as stiffeners of the fabric, passing right 

 through the sides. Strips of bamboo are used to caulk the 

 seams, and loops of the same material also form rowlocks for 

 the large oars or sweeps of European shape. 



On the north-west coast again, the outrigger, a nautical 

 feature never seen in Hova canoes, is largely used for the 

 canoes of the Sakalava and Antankarana, in fact they could 

 not otherwise live in the rough waters of the broad bays and 

 inlets of that coast. Some of these craft are quite different 

 in construction from any Hova canoe, being made of very thin 

 l^lankiug, and have a curiously curved piece rising from 

 the head and stern. It seems possible that some of these 

 canoes have been introduced by the Banyan traders from 

 India ; for, if I am not mistaken, some of them much resemble 

 the boat in use at Madras and other Indian ports. Others, how- 

 ever, are probably coeval with these northern Malagasy tribes 

 themselves. One kind of canoe much used among the islands 

 and bays of the northernmost part of Madagascar is called 



* The Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians, new edition, bj^ Samuel 

 Bircli, LL.D. London: 1870. 



