Abstract
THE first of Mr. Hornell's two memoirs3 deals with the various navigation appliances employed on the Ganges. These are studied under two main groups, representing respectively the primitive and the advanced types. The former comprises rafts, dug-outs, skins, and other rudimentary forms adapted to simple requirements. Inflated buffalo-skins, used either singly as floats to support a swimmer, or by associating together two or more to give buoyancy to a platform-raft, are still in use locally on the Ganges, just as they are on the Tigris, as direct survivals from the ancient Babylonian and Assyrian days. It is curious that the skin-covered coracle, which also was used in ancient Mesopotamia, is not represented in this part of India; its absence being the more noteworthy since it is prevalent both in southern India and in the Trans-Himalayan regions (e.g. Tibet). On the Ganges its place seems to be taken by the Tigari of Eastern Bengal, a circular, round-bottomed pottery bowl, in which one man can sit and propel himself with a short paddle.
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References
"The Boats of the Ganges" and "The Fishing Methods of the Ganges", by J. Homell . Memoirs of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, vol. 8, No. 3, 1924, pp. 171–238. Rupees 2.13.
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BALFOUR, H. Navigation and Fishing on the Ganges. Nature 115, 622 (1925). https://doi.org/10.1038/115622a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/115622a0