ave often to spend many weeks on them, slowly floating down
the rivers, they build huts or little cottages on them, cook their
provisions on board, and, in short, spend night and day in their
temporary floating-homes as comfortably as if they were on the land.

When these rafts approach a waterfall or a rapid, they unfasten the
lashings and allow several logs tied together to run down at a time.
After the rapid is passed, the loose logs are collected together, the
raft is reconstructed, and the voyage down to the sea continued. Of
course, huts are built only on rafts which navigate the largest rivers,
and are not thus liable to be taken to pieces.

When the logs reach the sea, they are shipped to various parts of the
world where timber is scarce. Large quantities are imported into Great
Britain from Canada and other parts of America.

A bold thing has occasionally been done. Instead of shipping the logs
in vessels, enterprising and ingenious men built them into a _solid
ship_, leaving a small space to serve as a cabin and a hold for
provisions; then, erecting masts, they hoisted sail, and in this
singular craft crossed the Atlantic. On arriving at port they broke up
their raft-ship and sold it.

The immense size of the rafts which are floated down some of the great
rivers of the world may be gathered from the following engraving, which
represents a raft on the Dwina, one of the great rivers of Russia.

Rafts, however, have not been confined to the purposes of traffic. They
have frequently been the means of saving the lives of shipwrecked
mariners; but too often they have been the means only of prolonging the
wretched existence of those who have ultimately perished at sea.

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Turning now from the consideration of rafts, we shall describe canoes.

Canoes must, we think, have been invented after rafts. They were
formed, as we have said, out of logs, of bark and of skins stretched
upon frames of wood. Of ancient canoes we can say little. But it is
probable that they were similar in most respects to the canoes used by
savage nations at the present time; for man, in his lowest or most
savage condition, is necessarily the same now that he was in ancient
times. We shall, therefore, take a glance at the canoes of savage
nations now existing, and thus shall form a good idea, we doubt not, of
what canoes were in days of old.

Simplest among t