INDIAN BOAT DESIGNS. 185 



the Nicobar Islands design is radically different from that of the sister group. The 

 outriggers found here are better built and more elegant in form and never possess 

 more than two booms. Instead of the crudely fashioned hull without sheer prevalent 

 in the Andamans^ we find the Nicobarese bestowing considerable care and taste upon 

 the lines and decoration of their canoes ; the bow is carried high in a graceful curve 

 to terminate in an extremely long-drawn-out prow ornament adorned with a stiif 

 flag at the apex, while the stern is produced considerably in an acuminate projection 

 inclined slightly upwards. " The hull is charred and decorated by grooved bands 

 running at short intervals from gunwale to gunwale round the outside. These canoes 

 are fitted according to size, with from one to four short bamboo masts, each sup- 

 ported by four widespreading stays of rattan, and on these are hoisted lateen sails with 

 a short tack of about 12 inches, made of cotton or pandanus leaves. The masts are 

 never stepped on the floor of the canoe, but always on one of the crossbars or 

 thwarts." ' 



In the case of the largest three-masted canoes, the fore mast is placed in the 

 bows, and well forward of the fore outrigger boom ; the main and mizzen masts 

 are stepped between the two booms, the mizzen just forward of the aft boom. All 

 the masts are vertical and vshort, the main being a little longer than the others. The 

 yards are longer than the masts. 



The chief peculiarity of these canoes is in the form of the outrigger. The 

 booms are invariably two in number lashed above the gunwales at their inner ends, 

 each being connected with the long float by means of three pairs of divergent stan- 

 chions crossing beneath the boom. The fore pair of stanchions slope outwards and 

 backwards ; the mid pair away from one another, while the aft pair pass outwards 

 and forwards. The upper extremities of the stanchions project conspicuously above 

 the boom, the length being often nearly equal to that between the boom and the 

 float. The stanchions are rod-shaped, the lower ends pointed and inserted in holes 

 in the float without lashing. The upper ends are lashed with rattan to the boom. 



The differences between the Nicobar and Andaman outrigger designs are so 

 great and fundamental that it is impossible for one to be derived from the other. 

 Discussion of this question and of the respective origins of both must however be 

 postponed to a later page. 



River Craft. 



In the general types of river craft seen in India, much less ingenuity is shown in 

 evolving designs for local needs, and correspondingly clearer and more primitive are 

 their relationships to types known in the ancient world. The simplest and quaintest 

 are the plantain-stem catamaran of Tanjore and Bengal, the chatty-raft of South 

 India, the round coracle of the Cauveri and Tungabhadra and the double palm dug- 

 out of the Godavari. 



by Mouat in his Adventures and Researches among the Andaman Islanders, 1863, while a model, agreeing in all essential 

 particulars but furnished with eight booms, finds a place in the Ethnological collection of the Indian Museum, Calcutta. 



1 Kloss, C. B., In the Andamans and Ntcobars, London, 1903, page 79. In this work an excellent illustration of a 

 Nicobar outrigger canoe is given. 



