Note 10 — Chapter II

Dr. W.E. Roth, writing to the Royal Anthropological Institute in 1908, describes the existing canoes on the northern and eastern coasts of Australia as being of two kinds: that which was made from a single sheet of bark, folded in its length and tied at the extremities (the sides being kept apart by primitive stretchers), and that which was hollowed by fire and stone axe from the trunk of a tree. But he implies by his further remarks that these "dug-out" canoes were originally obtained by the black Australians from the Melanesian or Negroid people of Papuasia, who are several degrees higher in mental development than the Australoids. He also alludes to rafts possessed by the northern and eastern Australians (the Tasmanians had somewhat similar ones), made of logs of white mangrove tied together at both ends, but in such a way that the rafts were narrower at one end than at the other. On top was placed some seaweed to form a cushion to sit on. These are propelled either like punts by means of a long pole, or are paddled with flattened stumps of mangrove or similar trees from the water side. In the tropical regions natives will make a rough-and-ready raft out of three trunks of the wild banana tied together with rattans or flexible canes.