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Show THE WELSH CORACLE. The Origin of an Old Time Craft Or GREAT UTILITY TO FISHERMEN. Dexterity of Some Paddlcrs. Easily Repaired. Every schoolboy knows, or, at an rate, hit U'eii told, that the oracle i the undent British Unit; but huw many people have seen a coracle or know the met lux I of its navigation? The case foi the antiquity of coracle is a pretty strong one, for-there is evidence of their use by the British in the lime of the Romans; Ro-mans; but Buch has been the uprooting of cherished beliefs in recent times that few people probably would be surprised to hear that coracles had never been beard of before the middle of the last century, and that the tirst had been used not by Noah, as the prevalent belief in Wales is, but by one David Jones (of tockcr celebrity), of Llangollen There is Dutch in the coracle, however, which favors the idea that it is a .primitive boat That a large wicker basket covered with skins would float is an idea which might occur to a man at an early stage of civ ilization; thai it might be made big enough to hold a man, or even two, and thut it would be convenient for crossing : rivers, and even for floating down them, while its lightness would make it easily ; carried up them, would merely be a de-! de-! velopmenl of the first idea. We therefore there-fore (we hope not rashly) believe in the Welsh legend of the antiquity of the coracle, not going further back, however, at present, than Koman times. But the present coracle is, as might be expected, a development, but by no means a very advanced one; the wicker has given place to ashen laths and the skins to tarpaulin. Coracles vary in shape slightly, and also in size. There are single and double ones L e., to hold one person or two. The largest size of double coracle weighs about sixty pounds; the smallest single one, perhaps, per-haps, thirty pounds. The nearest thing to it in shape that we can think of is one of those large walnut shells into which Limerick gloves used to be stowed, and which in hygone ages were considered suitable presents for ladies. There is a considerable bilge, the bottom of the coracle being much wider than the top; the largest and heaviest draw only two or three inches of water- The extreme crankness of the craft may be inferred from the method of getting into it; you put oue leg in. Bitting Bit-ting down with the game action, and then draw the other in carefully after. To people of some temperaments it is somewhat exciting to know that there is only a piece of tarred canvas between lliem and a raging flood, and that there are rocks and fallen trees under the discolored dis-colored water; but a good coracleman manages his boat very skillfully with Ma single paddle held in one hand, and just as you are in the middle of the turmoil of a fearful rapid, with rocks ahead and on each side, on which shipwreck seems inevitable, a dexterous sweep of the paddle pad-dle takes you between the breakers, and, before you can wink comfortably, you find yourself in the pool below, gliding along in perfect serenity. Coracles are used in many Welsh streams and on tho Severn, but, we believe, be-lieve, little elsewhere in England. The most systematic use of them, and the longest voyages made, are on the Dee, in the Vale of Llangollen, the "wizard stream" of Milton; the "holy Dee," "the dear brother of Severn" of Drayton, the "sacred Dee" of Tennyson; and verily the scenes through which the coracle -"flstienii.TiiTirf 'the. IJee pusses "are ever recurring re-curring scenes of enchantment. From uo position can river scenery be so well seen us from the middle of the stream; and when one pictures to one's self a voyage of a dozen miles along the windings of a river in such a vale as that of Llangollen, it is easy to conceive that lovely bits of scenery are repeated at every turn. Now the frail craft dashes down a rapid, the waves boiling on either side of it; now it glides on the surface of a long, deep, silent pool, buried in the woods, over the tops of which the purple hills appear. The foliage is rich beyond belief, be-lief, and in the Bpring and autumn its varied colors give the most charming effect. ef-fect. "Cool mosses deep" clothe the banks, wild flowers peep forth. Animals -are not very shy of the coracle, trout take the fly close to it. sandpipers flit about with the most transparent pretense of being there only for amusement and of having no nest anywhere in the neighborhood, water ousels show their white throats and little lit-tle round bodies on the rocks for a moment mo-ment and are gone, an occasional kingfisher king-fisher flashes past, hia 6plendid colors glowing in the sunlight, willow wrens hop jerkily about on the banks, and ! bright eyed water voles eye you curious ly before they take their plunge. Accidents rarely happen in a coracle Where the river is very difficult, the man who paddles makes the fisherman get out, and sometimes the ship itself is landed and carried past a dangerous place. Formerly coracles uiLcd to be carried for long distances on the men'B backs; now the railway has come to the fisherman's assistance, and his boat goes witli him to tbo station nearest to his starting point, and from thence is carried to the river. If a hole is knocked in the i bottom of the boat by a rock or the branch of a sunken tree, the coracle man paddles to the bank, lifts out hta coracle, lights a piece of taper he always carries with him, melts the tar on a patch of tarpaulin he produces from somewhere, and sticks it over the hole like a large piece of sticking plaster; in a few minutes min-utes it dries, and you are off again, Saturday Ueview. |
