1100

Customs of Asiatic Nations.

SMALL BOATS.

The small boats used by the Assyrians were made of thin laths of willow plaited over rods also of willow, and bent into the form of a boat. They were daubed with fine mud soaked with oil or with turpentine, and reduced to a kind of mud which resisted the water and because pine would split; and always remained fresh; and they covered this sort of boats with the skins of oxen in safely crossing the river Sicuris of Spain, as is reported by Lucant; [Footnote 7: See Lucan’s Pharsalia IV, 130: Utque habuit ripas Sicoris camposque reliquit, Primum cana salix madefacto vimine parvam Texitur in puppim, calsoque inducto juvenco Vectoris patiens tumidum supernatat amnem. Sic Venetus stagnante Pado, fusoque Britannus Navigat oceano, sic cum tenet omnia Nilus, Conseritur bibula Memphitis cymbo papyro. His ratibus transjecta manus festinat utrimque Succisam cavare nemus &c.

Caesar (de bello civ. I, 54) has the same remark about the Britanni (confirmed by Pliny, hist, nat. IV, 15) which Leonardo here makes about the Assyrians.---This and the foregoing texts are illustrated by slight sketches.]

The Spaniards, the Scythians and the Arabs, when they want to make a bridge in haste, fix hurdlework made of willows on bags of ox-hide, and so cross in safety.

Taken from The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci edited by Jean Paul Richter, 1880.

Notebooks of Leonoardo da Vinci
XVII: Topographical Notes.
. . .
1080,
1081,
1082
The straits of Gibraltar.
1083,
1084,
1085
Tunis.
1086
Libya.
1087
Majorca.
1088
The Tyrrhene Sea.
1089
The Levantine Sea.
1090
The Red Sea..
1091,
1092
The Nile.
1093,
1094,
1095,
1096,
1097,
1098
Customs of Asiatic Nations.
1099,
1100
Rhodes.
1101,
1102
Cyprus.
1103
The Caspian Sea.
1104,
1105,
1106
The sea of Azov.
1107
The Dardanelles.
1108
Constantinople.
1109
The Euphrates.
1110
Centrae Asia.
1111
On the natives of hot countries.
1112
. . .