The question of interest in connection with this vehicle is whether or not the Dutch of the seventeenth century used carts of so primitive a type as that now in use among the Ami. Is it not more probable that when the carts introduced by the Dutch fell into decay, the Ami, in their attempts at imitation of the original model, unconsciously reproduced a form of vehicle used by man at the “dawn of history?”[99] Needless to say, the Ami cart produces a painful creaking, and a sound that can be compared only to a series of _groans_ when it is drawn over the rough roads of the east coast. This, however, apparently adds to its attractiveness in the eyes of its owners. Whether or not the present-day cart represents the degeneration of a more highly evolved type of vehicle once known to the Ami would be difficult to assert with positiveness. As regards water transport, however, it is almost certain that degeneration has taken place among the Ami, as among the other Formosan tribes, both in the craft of boat-building and in the understanding of navigation. Tribal traditions among all the aborigines point to the fact that their ancestors were skilful navigators and that they understood the construction of boats capable of making long voyages. But the rafts used for fishing at the present time by those tribes living on the east coast could not be used for making even a short sea voyage. Nor could the plank canoes also used for fishing which a few tribal units of the Ami, living near Pinan, build--in obvious, though crude, imitation of the Chinese fishing-junk--be used for navigation. Of all the aboriginal tribes, the most skilful boat-builders are the Yami, of Botel Tobago. Their boats, like their pottery, resemble more those of the Papuans of the Solomon Islands than they do those of the other Formosan tribes--this both in mode of construction and in ornamentation. These boats are not dug-outs, but are built from tree-trunks, smoothed and trimmed with adzes, lashed together--through holes bored near the seams--with withes of rattan. Prow and stern are rounded in graceful curves. The boats present a picturesque and attractive appearance, but cannot be used for making long voyages.