The amount of weight which such a structure will support is really astonishing, as long as the casks remain whole, and to upset it is almost impossible. Even cannon can be taken across wide expanses of water in perfect safety, and there is hardly anything more awkward of conveyance than a cannon, with its own enormous and concentrated weight, and all the needful paraphernalia of limber, ammunition (which may not be wetted, and of immense weight), horses, and men.
Yet even this heterogeneous mass of living and lifeless weight can be carried on the cask-raft, which is an exact imitation of the living raft of the Violet Snail.
Beneath the cask-pontoon is to be seen a sketch of a very curious vessel which is in use on the Nile, and I rather think on the Ganges also, though I am not quite sure. It is formed in the following manner:—
In both countries there are whole families who from generation to generation have lived in little villages up the river, and gained their living by making pottery, mostly of a simple though artistic form, the vessel having a rather long and slender neck, and a more or less globular body.
When a man has made a sufficient number of these vessels, he lashes them together with their mouths uppermost, and then fixes upon them a simple platform of reeds. The papyrus was once largely used for this purpose, but it seems to be gradually abandoned.
He thus forms a pontoon exactly similar in principle with the cask-pontoon which has just been described. Then, taking his place on his buoyant raft, he floats down the river until he comes to some populous town, takes his raft to pieces, sells the pots and reeds, and makes his way home again by land.
WAR AND HUNTING.
CHAPTER I.
THE PITFALL, THE CLUB, THE SWORD, THE SPEAR AND DAGGER.
Analogy between War and Hunting.—The Pitfall as used for both Purposes.—African Pitfalls for large Game, and their Armature for preventing the Escape of Prey.—Its Use in this Country on a miniature scale.—Mr. Waterton’s Mouse-trap.—Pitfall of the Ant-lion, and its Armature for preventing the Escape of Prey.—The Club and its Origin.—Gradual Development of the Weapon.—The “Pine-apple” Club of Fiji.—The Game of Pallone and the “Bracciale.”—The Irish Shillelagh.—Clubs and Maces of Wood, Metal, or mixed.—The Morgenstern.—Ominous Jesting.—Natural Clubs.—The Durian, the Diodon, and the Horse-chestnut.—The Sword, or flattened and sharpened Club.—Natural and artificial Armature of the Edge.—The Sword-grass, Leech, and Saw-fish.—Spears and Swords armed with Bones and Stones.—The Spear and Dagger, and their Analogies.—Structure of the Spear.—The Bamboo as a Weapon of War or Hunting.—Singular Combat, and its Results.
THE two subjects which are here mentioned are practically one, the warfare being in the one case carried on against mankind, and in the other against the lower animals, the means employed being often the same in both cases.