Note 455 — Chapter XV

Such vessels are well-known to Indian navigators; and, while carrying between 100 and 200 tons, ride steadily on a heavy swell that causes a large steamer to roll its ports under water. They are extraordinary looking craft, and are frequently to be found, not merely in the vicinity of Ceylon, but about the islands of the Pacific, and along the coasts of Northern India, as well as on the shores of Java and Sumatra, though nowhere else. The Indian boat, however, so far as I can judge, most resembling the steamer which Captain Dicey has built, is the jangá (not the catamaran),—a double platform canoe of the Cochin China backwater. The pontoons at Chatham are of a similar construction. To form the jangár, a floor of boards is laid across two boats, with bamboo railings 10 to 12 feet broad and 16 feet long; in these boats, native regiments, cattle, &c., are ferried across rivers. I may add, that the catamarans proper are constructed of three logs lashed firmly together, the centre one being the largest. They are usually from 20 to 25 feet in length, and from 2½ to 3½ feet only in width.