536 On Vessels made of the Vapyrus. 



which are evt present used in that country ; and as they dq 

 so exactly ilhistrate parts of my former paper on vessels 

 madeof the Papyrus (Vol.11, 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 faisceau de paille, described by Denon, 

 and figured (Vol. 11. p. 328. fig. 89.), and is most probably 

 formed of the same species of plant, the paper reed or rush 

 (Cyperus Papyrus Lin.). It is used by the Arab in Chaldaea 

 after the samn 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 oa 

 the Tigris and Euphrates. 



The same author notices (p. 55,) the round wicker-baskets, 

 called in Arabic koqffah, 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 Egypt 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, 

 Judaea, Syria, Armenia, Mesopotamia, Chaldaea, Babylonia, 

 and even of a great portion of the East. And, moreover, 



