The time arrived, as it usually does to men of genius, when Cæsar turned the idea of the coracle to good account. Ptolemy had destroyed his bridges, and the only boats that could have saved him were such as he could build quickly of any common materials which might come to hand. He remembered the coracle, which he had seen in Britain built of hazel, or willow, or any kind of rods that were capable of being woven so as to form a framework for the covering of skins. Cæsar immediately proceeded to construct his boats; and by means of a number of coracles of large size, but rapidly constructed, his army successfully crossed the river, which had stopped and endangered its march. A Welsh coracle for one passenger upsets so easily that a stroke from a salmon’s tail is said to be more than the cranky little boat can bear without being overturned. One person forms a full freight for a coracle of the usual size, besides the one who uses the paddle; and that person being the oarsman’s wife, he places her cautiously in the stern, and declines a second passenger. When there are two persons to be ferried over, one of them is usually taken across first, and the other is left on the bank, and brought over afterwards. During the voyage, certain precautions must be observed, which are well understood by all persons accustomed to this kind of navigation. But we remember on one occasion, when an English lady, a tourist, was in the act of crossing the river below Cardigan, some of her friends having already crossed, while others watched behind—for her precautions before setting out had been elaborate. She had no sooner reached the middle of the stream than she rose suddenly to her feet, and the next moment was capsized and sprawling in the water. It is a ‘rule of the road’ never to stand up in a coracle.