i42 J. HORNELL ON 



These trading craft are divided into numerous varieties by native seamen ; some 

 by differences apparently so slight that the uninitiated has difficulty in appreciating 

 them. The main source of trouble is that boats of essentially the same build are 

 given different names dependent primarily on the race of the owner and signalized by 

 divergence in small detail^ usually of ornament. Thus the baggala and gunjo are 

 the Arab forms of the Indian kotia, the Arab boom or dhangi the counterpart of the 

 Indian nauri, while the Indian batel represents the Arab sambuk. 



The baggala is usually built by Arabs in their own lands ; is two and even 

 occasionally three-masted, fully decked, with a high poop, truncate stern with coun- 

 ter, rudder trunk and ornamented quarters. In size commonly between 300-400 

 tons, rarely reaching 500 tons' register. 



The kotia is built in India for Indian owners ; in great measure it is the native 

 craft of the coast of Kutch and Kathiawar. In appearance it approaches closely to 

 the baggala type, being two-masted, with poop, carved square stern and quarters ; 

 usually with a rudder trunk. In size it runs generally under 200 tons, but in spite of 

 its smaller size it makes equally long voyages as its great relative, the baggala, often 

 making round voyages from Katch Mandvi to Bombay, thence to Madagascar or the 

 African coast, back to Bombay and on home. 



Kotias are the oceanic tramps of Indian craft, willing to go wherever remunera- 

 tive freight offers, be it Chittagong or Jeddah, Nossi Be or Colombo. Often the bet- 

 ter found are copper bottomed ; if not, they have the usual chunam and grease mix- 

 ture applied tc the under-water parts. They are built chiefly at Kutch Mandvi, and 

 on the Kathiawar coast, but a fair number are built at Mangalore and Calicut. 



From baggalas of equal size they are distinguished, as are so many of these 

 Eastern crafts, by the distinctive ornament upon the stem-head. In the baggala, this 

 consists of a bollard-shaped prolongation of the stem-post, encircled by carved rings 

 and often surmounted by a short peg ; in kotias a striking ornament, the so-called 

 "Parrot's head", forms a characteristic figure-head. This latter ornament is a very 

 widely spread Indian motif, seen again in the gunjo and the nauri. The gunja or 

 gunjo is an Arab-owned kotia, built for or transferred to an Arab port. The only 

 recognisable difterence is usually the form of the stem ornament ; the " Parrot's 

 head " has been reduced to a geometrical circular disc with a curved bar on the aft 

 side in place of the beak and with a crest-like ornament on top. 



Last of all the square-sterned traders commonly seen on the North- West and 

 Bombay coasts is the Arab sambuk, a roughly built two-masted decked coaster, 

 with low poop and plain stem-head. They hail from the Zanzibar and Arabian 

 coasts, and range to 200 tons register ; being seldom built in India they should pro- 

 perly find no place in this list, but as they constitute an essentially Arab type and 

 are numerous in the ports of Western India it is as well to include them, as they 

 grade into the next form: — 



The batel, a still more primitive coaster of the baggala and sambuk type, from 

 which it difiers in being undecked except at the extreme ends and being without 

 poop. The stern, stem-head, and general appearance are as in the sambuk. As a 



