Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 4, 2025
The journey across consumed close upon two hours, for the balsa, while buoyant enough to support the whole party and their belongings, was, from the very character of her construction, unwieldy and difficult to propel; but she arrived safely at last on the south-western shore of the lagoon.
He said much more as to the blindness of the English, in suffering the French pedlars to carry on, uninterruptedly, the most considerable branch of traffic in the world. At this time also, the master of the small bark came off in a balsa. This is an odd sort of an embarkation, consisting of two large seal skins, separately blown up, like bladders, and made fast to pieces of wood.
But if we were in my own country yonder I would set its fragments in a case of gold and place them in the Temple of the Sun as a memorial." Then we went to a pool of rainwater that lay in a hollow rock near by, and drank our fill, for we were very thirsty. Also among the ruins of the balsa we found some of the dried fish that was left to us, and having washed it, filled ourselves.
Two masts or sturdy poles, erected in the middle of the vessel, sustained a large square-sail of cotton, while a rude kind of rudder and a movable keel, made of plank inserted between the logs, enabled the mariner to give a direction to the floating fabric, which held on its course without the aid of oar or paddle.13 The simple architecture of this craft was sufficient for the purposes of the natives, and indeed has continued to answer them to the present day; for the balsa, surmounted by small thatched huts or cabins, still supplies the most commodious means for the transportation of passengers and luggage on the streams and along the shores of this part of the South American continent.
They are extremely careful not to fall overboard, for the water in the lake is cold, 55° F., and none of them know how to swim. Lake Titicaca itself never freezes over, although during the winter ice forms at night on the shallow bays and near the shore. A Lake Titicaca Balsa at Puno A Step-Topped Niche on the Island of Koati
While these events were passing on the banks of the Biobio, an Araucanian officer named Lillemu, who had been detached by Antiguenu to lay waste the provinces of Chillan and Itata, defeated a Spanish detachment of eighty men commanded by Pedro Balsa.
He had fallen in with what seemed at first a ship at sea, where no European ship had ever been, and found it to be an Indian balsa, a huge raft across which was stretched a sail of cotton-cloth. It had a rudder and a keel. On board were men and women clad in a curious sort of woollen stuff, skilfully woven, and beautifully dyed and embroidered. They were making a voyage of traffic along the coast.
The end of it was that for a knife and a few nails Kari purchased the largest balsa that these people had, provisioning it with as much dried fish, corn and water in earthenware jars as it would carry together with ourselves, and such of our remaining goods as we wished to take with us.
No interruption occurred, however, and in less than an hour the reeds were all cut and the construction of the first balsa was begun. Huanami proved himself an adept in the art of balsa construction, and when noon arrived, and with it the hour for the mid-day meal, the first balsa was complete and ready for service, including a pair of paddles, also ingeniously made of reeds.
Although born in Touraine, Balzac was not of Tourainian stock, for his birthplace was due merely to chance. His father, Bernard Francois Balssa or Balsa, came originally from the little village of Nougaire, in the commune of Montirat and district of Albi. He descended from a peasant family, small land-owners or often simple day labourers.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking