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| AN AFRICAN BIMBA - The engraving faithfully
represents an exhibit which was situated in the east gallery at the
north end of the Transportation Building.
It was constantly surrounded by visitors, who could only with
difficulty believe that it had been used as a canoe in an African
river. There was no caulking, nor did it appear that any effort had
even been made to keep the water from entering the boat, though the
drying out of the small logs may have made a change in the
sea-worthiness of the craft. It was labeled "A Bimba, or Canoe, from
Banguella, Africa." On the railing in the rear was a large crayon
picture of a naked African propelling his bimba on a broad stream of
water, much as any ordinary paddler would handle his boat. It is
well held by the philosophers that where man sleeps under a banana
tree, to be awakened for his dinner by the fall of a banana into his
lap, he lets it go at that, and invents no helio-telephone to speak
across space with the sun's ray, builds no Campania steamship to lash
the ocean into a storm, nor girdles the earth in forty seconds with
his telegraph. Yet why these negroes should build a log canoe when
they might use a wool-skin or dug-out does not appear, either; and
amid kyaks of Labrador, caiques of the dardanelles, gondolas of
Venice, bragazzas of the Adriatic, phoenix-boats of Japan, bateaus of
French pioneers, dug-outs, wool-skins and what-not, this bimba seemed
to be the worst boat at the World's Fair. |
