536 On Vessels made of the Papyrus. 
which are at present used in that country; and as they do 
so exactly illustrate parts of my former paper on vessels 
made of the Papyrus (Vol. II. p.324—332.), I beg to submit 
the following passages to the notice of the readers of your 
Magazine : — Captain Mignan relates (p. 23.), that, in passing 
through an Arab encampment, “ parties of both sexes were 
crossing the stream (Tigris) in a state of nudity, upon a stra- 
tum of rush, which is evidently of the same kind as the 
‘vessels of bulrushes upon the waters’ alluded to by Isaiah 
in chap. xviii. v. 2.” 
Now this stratum of rush is identical with the sort of 
bundle of reeds, or fazsceau de paille, described by Denon, 
and figured (Vol. II. p. 328. fig. 89.), and is most probably 
formed of the same species of plant, the paper reed or rush 
(Cyperus Papyrus Lin.). Itis used by the Arab in Chaldaea 
after the same manner as by the inhabitant of Upper Egypt. 
We may refer to E. (p. 242.) for a copious and interesting 
note on the kelek, or leather raft, of Assyria, where are 
described three other kinds of barks, differently constructed, 
and covered with bitumen, and which are constantly in use on 
the Tigris and Euphrates. 
The same author notices (p. 55.) the round wicker-baskets, 
called in Arabic kooffah, and represented in a diagram (p. 56.). 
They are daubed over with naphtha, and are common on the 
Euphrates. Herodotus has mentioned them in his account of 
Babylon (Clio, c. 194.) ; and they have undergone little or no 
change since he visited that country. On the Tigris, near 
Bagdad, he further remarks (p. 54.): ‘ We passed a fleet of 
boats laden with wood. ‘These vessels are of a most singular 
construction, being put together with reeds and willow, thickly 
coated with bitumen: the prow is the broadest part of the 
boat, being extremely bluff, and the whole as clumsy and 
unwieldy as possible.” A neatly executed wood-cut (p. 55.) 
gives a view of two of these Bagdad wood-boats, which are 
two-prowed and crescent-shaped, and most remarkably re- 
semble in their form the ancient canoe figured Vol. II. 
p. 329. fig. 92. 
I will now only remark, since these vessels are common at 
the present day, as well on the lakes and rivers of Meypt and 
Abyssinia, and the Red Sea, as on the Tigris and Euphrates, 
and are of the like shape, and built with the same materials as 
in the days of the sacred and heathen writers, that the same 
sorts of boats and rafts or floats are commonly used on all 
the rivers, lakes, and streams of Northern Africa, Arabia, 
Judaa, Syria, Armenia, Mesopotamia, Chaldaea, Babylonia, 
and even of a great portion of the Kast. And, moreover, 
