e canoe is decidedly improved.

Inflatable India-rubber Boats are an invention that has proved invaluable
to travellers: they have been used in all quarters of the globe, and are
found to stand every climate. A full-sized one weighs only 40 lbs. They
have done especial service in Arctic exploration; the waters of the Great
Salt Lake, in the Mormon country, were first explored and navigated with
one by Fremont; they were also employed by Dr. Livingstone on the rivers
of South Africa. They stand a wonderful amount of wear and tear; but, as
boats, they are inferior to native canoes, as they are very slow in the
water: it is, indeed, impossible to paddle them against a moderate
head-wind. For the general purposes of travellers, I should be inclined
to recommend as small a macintosh-boat as can be constructed; just
sufficient for one, or at the most for two, persons; such as the cloaks
that are made inflatable, and convertible into boats. A traveller wants a
portable boat, chiefly as means to cross over to a village for help, or
to carry his valuables across a river, while the heavy things are risked
at a ford; or for shooting, fishing, or surveying. Now a very small boat,
weighing about ten pounds, would do as well for all these purposes as a
large one, and would be far more portable.

It is perfectly easy to get into a macintosh-boat, after having been
capsized out of it into deep water.

Basket-boat with Canvas Sides.--FitzRoy gives an account of a party of
his sailors, whose boat had been stolen while they were encamped, putting
out to sea in a large basket, woven with such boughs as were at hand, and
covered with their canvas tent--the inside of which they had puddled with
clay, to keep the water from oozing through too fast. They were eighteen
hours afloat in this crazy craft. I mention this instance, to show how
almost anything will make a boat. Canvas saturated with grease or oil is
waterproof, and painted canvas is at first an excellent covering for a
boat, but it soon becomes rotten.

Canoe of Reeds or Vegetable Fibre.--A canoe may be made of reeds, rushes,
or the light inner bark of trees. Either of these materials is bound into
three long faggots, pointed at one end: these are placed side by side and
lashed together, and the result is a serviceable vessel, of the
appearance fig. 1, and section as fig. 2. The Lake Titicaca, which lies
far above the limit of trees, is navigated by boats made of rushes, and
carry