Dug-out Canoe in Algoa Bay

Abstract

WITH regard to the recent correspondence in NATURE on the derelict canoe washed ashore in Algoa Bay, I have now received information from Lieut.-Col. M. L. Ferrar, Chief Commissioner, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, that it was reported in October 1925 that the sailing ship Sree Shanasckthi picked up three Nicobarese who were found clinging to a submerged canoe, which would have been of the ordinary size, holding six to eight people. These men belonged to Lapati, Car Nicobars. In the Albany Museum, Grahamstown, there are pieces of pumice from the Krakatoa eruption, that were washed ashore in South Africa; they have been preserved with all the barnacles and seaweed adhering, just as they arrived. I saw the Port Elizabeth canoe shortly after it had been pulled out of the water, and the encrusting material was identical in kind, showing both had been submerged for the same time, under similar conditions. Some part must have been above the sea for them to have caught the monsoon wind that drove them across. If the boat is from Car Nicobars, then it took sixteen months to come to South Africa, and somehow I think that four months is more likely correct. I am still inclined to place the origin in the Mergui Archipelago, because of the spoon-shaped fore-foot, and general shape.