[Ehem, or little boats, and jenge-jenge, or African bridges, in Negroland] [graphic].
Title
[Ehem, or little boats, and jenge-jenge, or African bridges, in Negroland]
Description
Engraving shows two ehem (or canoes), which were commonly used in Negroland. On the left, two men build an ehem, while a third wades through the water with a bundle of wood on his back. To the right, five men paddle a finished ehem. As Ogilby wrote, "Along the whole Coast the Inhabitants use light and nimble Boats, or Sloops; by them call'd, Ehem; by the Portuguese, Almades; and by the English and others, Canoos: with which they go some Leagues to Sea, and row up the Rivers from one place to another: They are made of one entire piece of Wood, or the body of a Tree cut long-ways with Cutting-Knives; then made hollow on the sides, and narrow above, with a flat bottom, and without any covering over head; the Ends before and behind narrow, and close together as a Hand-bow, and almost in the same fashion; the Head somewhat lower, the Sides a finger thick, and the Bottom two: And after the hollowing, they burn the Wood with Straw, to prevent Worms, and cleaving by the Sun. At each End the Canoo hath a Bowe like a Galley, a foot long, and a Knob a hand thick, whereby the Blacks carry them in and out of the Water upon their shoulders; for they suffer them not to lie soaking in the water, but set them upon Props to dry; by which means they both preserve them from rotting, and make them more pliable and swift in the using. Behind they have a Rudder like an Oar, being a long Stick with a round leaf at it: The common ones, wherewith they go out a Fishing, are generally sixteen foot long, five broad, and three foot high; some so large, that fifty or sixty men may stand in them with their Arms; which sort are made about Cape de tres Puntas, because there grows mighty large Trees, being seventeen or eighteen fathom in thickness. They lie not high with their Sides above water, but oftentimes he that steers the Helm, sits with his body most in the water: The small ones will hold onely one man in the Breadth, but seven or eight in the Length; which are rowed with Oars made of hard wood, in shape of a Spade, with an extraordinary dexterity Galley-fashion; and make such swift way in Still water, that they seem to flye, but in Rough-water they will not go forward so fast: The smaller sort, by reason of their narrowness, overset very easily which the Negroe's with great facility turn and leap into again." (p. 454-55), Illustration in John Ogilby's Africa: Being an accurate description of the regions of Aegypt, Barbary, Lybia, and Billedulgerid: the Land of Negroes, Guinee, and Aethiopia, and Abyssines, with all the adjacent islands, either in the Mediterranean, Atlantick, Southern, or Oriental Sea, Belonging Thereunto (London: Printed by Tho. Johnson, for the author, and are to be had at his house in White Fryers, M.DC.LXX [1670]), p. 454 (bottom)., A closely related version of the engraving (mirror image) was published in Pieter van der Aa's La galerie agreable du monde (Leyden: 1729?) under the title Ehem, ou canots, petits bateaux, et Jenge-Jenge ou ponts des Africains., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Africa: Images, Maps, and Geography.
Date
[1670]
Location
Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare *Wing O163 14.F p 454 B, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2958