344 APPENDIX B 



by reason of the limitations of its construction is not of the correct 

 form to successfully run the rapid and bad waters of many of the 

 South American rivers. The North American Indian has un- 

 doubtedly developed a vastly superior craft in the birch-bark canoe, 

 and with it will run rapids that a South American Indian, with 

 his log canoe, would not think of attempting, though, as a general 

 thing, the South American Indian is a wonderful waterman, the 

 equal, and in some ways the superior, of his northern contemporary. 

 At the many carries or portages the light birch-bark canoe or its 

 modem representative, the canvas-covered canoe, can be picked up 

 bodily, and carried by from two to four men for several miles, if 

 necessary, while the log canoe has to be hauled by ropes and back- 

 breaking labour over rollers that have first to be cut from trees in 

 the forest, or, at great risk, led along the edge of the rapids with 

 ropes and hooks and poles ; the men often up to their shoulders in 

 the rushing waters, guiding the craft to a place of safety. 



The native canoe is so long and heavy that it is difficult to 

 navigate without some bumps on the rocks. In fact, it is usually 

 dragged over the rocks in the shallow water near shore in prefer- 

 ence to taking the risk of a plunge through the rushing volume of 

 deeper water, for reasons stated above. The North American canoe 

 can be turned with greater facility in critical moments in bad water. 

 Many a time I heard my steersman exclaim with delight as we took 

 a difficult passage between two rocks with our loaded Canadian 

 canoe. In making the same passage the dugout would go sideways 

 toward the rapid, until, by a supreme effort, her three powerful 

 paddlers and steersman would right her just in time. The native 

 canoe would ship great quantities of water in places the Canadian 

 canoe came through without taking any water on board. We did 

 bump a few rocks under water, but the canoe was so elastic that no 

 damage was done. 



Our nineteen-foot carewas-covered freight canoe, a type especially 

 built for the purpose on deep, full lines with high free-board, 

 weighed about one hundred and sixty pounds, and would carry a 

 ton ot cargo with ease — and also take it safely where the same 

 cargo distributed among two or three native thirty or thirty-five 

 foot canoes would be lost. The native canoes weigh from about 

 nine hundred to two thousand five hundred pounds and more. 



