Man on the Ocean: A Book about Boats and Ships

Once upon a time there were no ships. Men did not know the meaning of the word; they did notwant them; and, for many, many centuries the sea-gulls had the ocean all to themselves. But boats areof very ancient date. Doubtless the first boats must have been constructed by the first men who dwelton the earth. They consisted, probably-for we are now in the land of conjecture-of stumps offallen trees, or bundles of rushes, seated astride of which the immediate descendants of our firstparents ferried themselves over small lakes and across rivers.Wet feet are not agreeable under any circumstances. We can conceive that prolonged voyagesperformed in this fashion-say several hundred yards or a mile-rendered those primitive marinersso uncomfortable, that they resolved to improve their condition; and, after much earnest thought, hit upon the plan of fastening several logs together by means of twigs, and thus they formed rafts.As time progressed, and men began to display wisdom in making tools of stone and in the mouldingof metal, we can imagine that they soon bethought themselves of flattening the surface of theirrafts; and then, finding them unwieldy and difficult to manage, no doubt, they hit upon the idea ofhollowing out the logs. Adzes were probably not invented at that time, so they betook themselves tothe element of fire-which is at the present day used by savage nations for the same purpose-andburned out the insides of their logs. Thus canoes sprang into being.But such canoes were clumsy and heavy, besides being liable to split; men therefore bethoughtthemselves of constructing a light framework of wood, which they covered with bark or skin. Thenartificers in iron invented saws; logs were ripped up; planks were formed; pitch oozed ready to handfrom the trees; with grass, perchance, they caulked the seams;-and soon the first boat floated on thewater-clumsy and tub-like, no doubt, but serviceable withal-and youths of a hundred years old, and full-grown men of two or three hundred, capered and shouted on the shore with delight at thegreat invention; while venerable patriarchs, of seven or eight hundred summers, gazed in wonder, with almost prophetic solemnity, and exclaimed that they had never before seen the like of that in allthe course of their long, long liv