256 



Portable Boats. 



The earliest form of portable boat of which history gives 

 us any account is that which we might call the bull boat, 

 being made of neat's hide upon a light wicker-work but 

 permanent frame. Herodotus says (Book 1, p. 193) : 

 "The boats which come down the river" — meaning the 

 Euphrates — "to Babylon are circular and made of skins. 

 The frames which are of willow are cut in the country of 

 the Armenians, above Assyria, and on these, which serve 

 for hulls, a covering of skins is stretched outside, and thus 

 the boats are made without stem or stern, quite round like 

 a shield." This form, which seems to have existed even 

 in pre-historic times, about the same in form in Egypt as 

 in Britain, was known to the Romans as curuca, car- 

 rocium or caribus, and to the Celts as corwig or curach. 

 Caesar describes those of the ancient Britons as having, 

 in addition to the wicker-work, keels and gunwales of 

 wood, permanent and substantial, though rather light 

 boats for sea voyages, we would be apt to think. Yet 

 there are records of those early days — when men were 

 men indeed — of the North sea daringly navigated, and 

 the Irish channel crossed (a tedious voyage of seven days) 

 in one of those leathern tubs ! In England this form of 

 portable boat has long since gone out of use, a few speci- 

 mens gathered from the Highlands of Scotland remaining 

 as trophies in archaeological museums ; though latterly, 

 some of modern construction have been used in so called 

 coracle races for fashionable amusement. It was, how- 

 ever, only in recent times that the coracle, as it is modernly 

 called, disappeared generally in Scotland, where they had 

 been long retained by the highland lumbermen for what 

 our American lumbermen would call river driving — the 

 loose timber being finally made up into rafts, and the 

 bull-boat no longer needed. In Ireland the coracle is, 

 however, still in use and has been described as follows : 

 " It is in shape oval, near three feet broad, and four long ; 

 a small keel runs from the head to the stern ; a few ribs 



