Portable Boats. 



255 



cles, and find some forms of them existing even in pre- 

 historic times. Indeed when we come to examine the 

 causes which lead men to desire a light, portable boat, we 

 will find that all the different available forms known to the 

 world have been originated either among savages with the 

 first dawning of civilization or — for here extremes meet — 

 when civilization pushes out into the wilderness or among 

 savages, where the narrow lanes of water and frequent 

 landings and portages will not admit of larger craft. 



Perhaps the first of portable boats was that which carried 

 Moses in the bulrushes — but that cannot be determined. 



The earliest form of water conveyance was probably the 

 raft. A floating log may have saved some tired swimmer — 

 a witless savage flying from murderous enemies — with 

 yet wit enough to grasp the log, as a drowning man is 

 popularly supposed to grasp the straw. The log which 

 floats him he soon learns to guide. Hereafter he will have 

 a raft. Another step — his leathern water bucket, left at 

 the water side, he sees wafted off upon the tide, high and 

 dry, which, if full of water, he knows would sink. He 

 sees and thinks, and shortly turns shipbuilder. Whether 

 he labors in vain to build a raw hide boat, collapsed as 

 soon as his foot is placed in it, who can tell : this much we 

 know from archaeology, the earliest remains of boats found 

 mingled with the remains of prehistoric races are " dug- 

 outs" hollowed logs, monstrous shaped things like horse- 

 troughs, which served them to navigate the prehistoric 

 waters. 



The dug-out, however, as every one is probably aware, 

 cannot be considered a portable boat. Even the light 

 cypress dug-outs of Florida, beautiful in shape and finish, 

 are hard to propel through the bayous against wind and 

 tide, let alone their carrying. The boat of skins might, 

 indeed, have been the earliest, the perishable character of 

 its substance preventing its preservation in the cranogues 

 with the other remains of more solid character. 



