The bark canoes of the Australian blacks were very primitive affairs; they have almost disappeared, sharing the fate of the rapidly dwindling aborigines. It may be doubted if a trace of one of these canoes could now be found from one end of the Murray River to the other. Since the blacks saw how easily the white man knocked together a few planks and made a flat-bottomed, straight-sided boat, they ceased to labour at bark canoes, but instead obtained a few boards, usually by pilfering, “borrowed” or begged a few nails, and with a stone for a hammer have done likewise, patching the very leaky seams with anything that came handy, were it scrap of tin, leather, raw hide, or well-greased fragment of a dirty, torn, old blanket, and making up for deficiencies by incessant bailing. Never again on the southern Australian rivers will the bark canoe convey the braves to the scene of the tribal conflict, or ferry in the dying glow of the setting sun the skeleton-painted men to the edge of the grim, dark forest on the other shore to attend a great corroboree, whether of war, rejoicing, or grief. Nor have the African negroes made much progress beyond the dug-out stage of war canoe construction. The Moors and Arabs long since proved themselves excellent seamen and shipbuilders, designing boats suitable to their needs, and are in quite another category. The negroes of the Cross River district in Southern Nigeria may be taken as typical of the African canoe makers. They usually chose a mahogany or awosa tree, and, having felled it, burnt it hollow where it fell. It was then dragged on rollers to the waterside and finished with whatever tools were available, matchets, knives and axes being used since the white man’s introduction of those implements. Occasionally a canoe is “smoked” or hardened by being exposed to the hot smoke of a fire built round it. Some of the war canoes are as much as 60 feet in length, and are wide enough to allow the men to sit two abreast. The larger ones have a steering platform on a level with the gunwale or raised a foot or two above it, and a smaller platform is placed at the bow, where a flagstaff may also be fixed. When there are no thwarts or seats the crew sit on the bottom of the canoe or on the gunwale, according to the size of the vessel. Both bow and stern overhang. The paddles are made of hardwood in one piece, 3 to 4 feet in length, and are pointed. It is to the East Indies and the Pacific that we must turn to find the most wonderful examples of the war canoe. They may be divided into two classes: those with outriggers--this section including double canoes--and those without. [Illustration: A “DUG-OUT” CANOE OF NEW GUINEA.] [Illustration: NEW GUINEA CANOES WITH OUTRIGGERS. _From Photographs supplied by the Hon. J. E. Jenkins._]