I have known cases where a number of boys, living near the water, bought a sail boat which they owned in common. Each had the right to its use on a fixed day, though, as they were school fellows, it happened that they usually went out together. The latter is the better way, provided always that when the crew starts off for a cruise it is distinctly understood that one of the number is to be the captain for the time and is to be obeyed accordingly.
It was told when I was a boy, but I doubted the story then and I don't believe it now, that when migrating squirrels, that do not take kindly to the water, reach a wide stream they secure bits of wood or bark large enough to float them, then with their tails erect to catch the wind they sail gaily across.
The natives of North Australia, the most primitive people of whom we have any knowledge, use logs, singly or lashed together with vines, to cross rivers and arms of the sea.
CANOES
Our own American Indians were more advanced. Even the rudest of them had learned before the coming of the white man to hollow out the log by means of fire and to shape it with stone axes into the form of the present canoe.
The birch-bark canoe, made by the Indians of the northern rivers and lakes, is really a work of art. It is a model of lightness, and when we consider its frailty, and then the way in which it can be managed in the most turbulent currents, our admiration is divided between the craft of the maker and the surprising skill of the man who handles the paddle.
The ancestor of the graceful yacht and of the great ocean steamers, that carry their thousands with as much comfort as if they were on shore, is the rude canoe or raft of our own forefathers.
It is from these forefathers that we have inherited our love for outdoor life, for fishing and for water, and the instinctive desire to hunt which is inborn in every healthy boy.
EVOLUTION
In the evolution of water craft, the vessel propelled by pole, paddle or oar must have preceded the use of sails. The former required more strength and the latter more skill. But no matter what science and art may do to make sailing more secure and comfortable, the boy, particularly if he be country bred, and so forced to be more self- reliant, will have a try at the raft, dingey or canoe before he aspires to anything more elaborate and expensive.