ction, and often have we tossed upon her foam-topped waves;
but we don't wish to be a sailor--by no manner of means!

And now, boys, come along, and we will conduct you as pleasantly and
profitably as we can from a ship's cradle, through all her stormy
existence, to her grave.

CHAPTER TWO.

THE EARLIEST DAYS OF WATER-TRAVELLING.

Once upon a time there were no ships. Men did not know the meaning of
the word; they did not want them; and, for many, many centuries the
sea-gulls had the ocean all to themselves. But _boats_ are of very
ancient date. Doubtless the _first_ boats must have been constructed by
the _first_ men who dwelt on the earth. They consisted, probably--for
we are now in the land of conjecture--of stumps of fallen trees, or
bundles of rushes, seated astride of which the immediate descendants of
our first parents ferried themselves over small lakes and across rivers.

Wet feet are not agreeable under any circumstances. We can conceive
that prolonged voyages performed in this fashion--say several hundred
yards or a mile--rendered those primitive mariners so uncomfortable,
that they resolved to improve their condition; and, after much earnest
thought, hit upon the plan of fastening several logs together by means
of twigs, and thus they formed _rafts_.

As time progressed, and men began to display wisdom in making tools of
stone and in the moulding of metal, we can imagine that they soon
bethought themselves of flattening the surface of their rafts; and then,
finding them unwieldy and difficult to manage, no doubt, they hit upon
the idea of hollowing out the logs. Adzes were probably not invented at
that time, so they betook themselves to the element of fire--which is at
the present day used by savage nations for the same purpose--and burned
out the insides of their logs. Thus _canoes_ sprang into being.

But such canoes were clumsy and heavy, besides being liable to split;
men therefore bethought themselves of constructing a light framework of
wood, which they covered with bark or skin. Then artificers in iron
invented saws; logs were ripped up; planks were formed; pitch oozed
ready to hand from the trees; with grass, perchance, they caulked the
seams;--and soon the first _boat_ floated on the water--clumsy and
tub-like, no doubt, but serviceable withal--and youths of a hundred
years old, and full-grown men of two or three hundred, capered and
shouted on the shore with delight at the great