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J. HORNELL ON 



identical in all their essential features with the lesser craft depicted on the walls of 

 ancient Egyptian tombs or preserved to us in models made for the use of the dead. 

 The fishing boats, often passenger or cargo dinghis converted for the nonce, may 



Fig. 25. — A Ganges Fishing Boat. 



or may not have a cabin amidships, but all carry a high spritsail set well forward to- 

 wards the bow and not aft as in the little sampan dinghis (fig. 25). This form, manned 

 by 3 or 4 men, is greatly in evidence during the hilsa season when a long procession 



Fig. 26. — Topsail river boat of the Ganges. 



of these boats is often to be seen drifting rapidly down stream with nets submerged, 

 with another series sailing or rowing upstream with decks encumbered with the huge 

 bamboo crescent trap-mouths of their sangla net. 



