THE TECHNOLOGIST. [March 1, 1865. 



362 FOREIGN AND HOME 



On the Coromaiiclel coast we meet with the catamaran, or raft, with its 

 brown triangular sail, which at a distance resembles a buoy placed to 

 mark a shoal ; off Madras with the masulah or surf boat, apparently 

 clumsy and frail, yet admirably adapted for landing on the beach, on 

 which the rollers of the Indian Ocean unceasingly break. On the 

 Ganges and Hooghly are numerous fiat boats, a sort of floating houses, 

 with very high pointed sterns, low bows, and kiosk-like buildings amid- 

 ships to give shelter from the sun. The war galley of theBirmans with 

 its thirty rowers, and the sliupdn doghe, or state yacht, are magnificent 

 vessels in their way. 



On the coast of China there is an entire change ; and however 

 fantastical the form, there is no want of intelligence in adapting the 

 junks for the work they have to do ; they have their greatest breadth 

 abaft the beam, the stern is round, and the bow sharp, with no hollow 

 lines ; the sail is of palm canvas with bamboo laths across it, sometimes 

 upwards of thirty in number, like a persienne or Venetian blind. A 

 Tonkin coasting junk with its radiating ribbed sail and the curved head 

 drawn forward, looking like a gigantic nautilus. In the Philippine Isles, 

 as in all the country of the Malays, double outriggers, or one on each 

 side, are used, the weather one serving to give stability by its weight, the 

 lee one by its buoyancy ; the tarayas or fishing rafts with their two 

 masts in the form of shears, their very long bamboo lateen yards curving 

 right and left, and the fishing nets suspended from them are very pic- 

 turesque. The Malay coasters have triple masts in the form of a tri- 

 angle, while the build of the boats is not unlike that of the fishing boats 

 of Provence. In these seas, which are always smooth, the notorious 

 Malay pirates have reproduced the biremes and triremes of the ancient 

 ages. They are very long boats, and the banks of oars or paddles are 

 placed one above and outside the other on the outriggers, and the boats 

 attain a great speed. 



To the eastward of New Guinea we meet with only the single out- 

 rigger, the happy invention of some savage Archimedes, which by its 

 leverage enables the small and narrow canoes t# carry large sail?. In 

 the Caroline Islands we first see the flying praos, the sail being an 

 equilateral triangle, having its side equal to the length of the canoe. 

 This enormous sail is balanced by a sing! e outrigger in the form of a 

 small solid boat, and the lateral resistance is further increased by the 

 lee side of the canoe being straight and nearly upright, as they can always 

 present the same side to the wind, changing the rudder from stern to 

 stem when necessary. The natives of this group, the sailors par excellence 

 of the South Seas, go distances of 700 miles out of sight of land, and 

 their speed is such that the name of flying praos given by the earlier 

 circumnavigators hardly seems an exaggeration. 



At Vanikorro, where La Perouse perished in the year 1788, the ends 

 of the canoes are decked, and in the centre is a raised caboose, from the 

 top of which long slight spars cn~ve down to the outriggers on each side, 



