Having seen this boat of ancient Britain on those Welsh rivers where it has been wont to float since the commencement of the historic period—having seen a Welsh fisherman ferry his wife over the Towy in a coracle, we will endeavour to describe this antique relic and to relate a few leading facts of its history. Before the subjugation of the British, this boat of theirs was probably found in all parts of England; it is now confined to Wales, the last stronghold of the British after the arrival of the Saxons—or English, as they are now called. It is found, in fact, only in a few parts of Wales; and in the course of this short narrative we shall not ramble far in other regions, though it may be interesting to mention that boats exactly similar in structure to the coracle of Wales are frequently used in many parts of India for the purpose of crossing the rivers of that great country; and this forms one of those obscure links which Mr Borrow loved to dilate upon in his _Wild Wales_, a book of wonderful attraction both to the learned and to travellers and tourists. Joining all the links together into a connected chain, and taking language into account, the evidence is strong that the Welsh, or ancient British, were originally emigrants from India. The antiquity of this queer little ark—for it is more ark than boat in shape—is undoubted. Herodotus describes the common boats of the Euphrates as having been in all respects similar in pattern and construction to the coracles of Wales. The materials for making these simple, home-built vessels were naturally such as the particular country might afford. In India they were made of wicker, covered with skins; and on the Euphrates they were of willow, covered with hides. In the salmon-fishing season, almost any day except Sunday from April till the end of August, coracles may still be observed on the rivers Towy and Teivy, having remained there unaltered from the time when the attention of Cæsar was attracted by them during his campaign in Britain. A fisherman still slings his boat over his back, and carries it home in that position; and on reaching his dwelling, he sets it erect against the house-wall, and leaves it there till he again goes fishing, when he carries it back to the water. An old Welsh adage runs, ‘A man’s load is his coracle;’ and in former times, when this old-fashioned boat was covered with raw hides, the load must have been a heavy one. The hides, however, have now been discarded for a light covering made of waterproof canvas. The shape of the coracle remains unaltered. It is the broadest of boats in proportion to its length, hence it moves through the water under the alternate stroke of the paddle with a motion like the waddling of a duck.