It would also appear that the ancient tribes in these islands, like the New Zealanders, used fire to hollow out their larger boats; several specimens of this kind of vessel having recently been dug up in the valleys of the Witham and the Clyde, some of the latter from under the very streets of modern Glasgow.[1] Their smaller boats, or coracles, were made of osiers interwoven, covered with hides, and rigged with leathern sails and thong tackle.
It will readily be imagined that anything like civilization, as at present understood, must have been next to impossible under such circumstances.

"Miserable indeed," says Carlyle, "was the condition of the aboriginal savage, glaring fiercely from under his fleece of hair, which with the beard reached down to his loins, and hung round them like a matted cloak; the rest of his body sheeted in its thick natural fell.

He loitered in the sunny glades of the forest, living on wild fruits; or, as the ancient Caledonians, squatted himself in morasses, lurking for his bestial or human prey; without implements, without arms, save the ball of heavy flint, to which, that his sole possession and defence might not be lost, he had attached a long cord of plaited thongs; thereby recovering as well as hurling it with deadly, unerring skill." The injunction given to man to "replenish the earth and subdue it" could not possibly be fulfilled with implements of stone.

To fell a tree with a flint hatchet would occupy the labour of a month, and to clear a small patch of ground for purposes of culture would require the combined efforts of a tribe.

For the same reason, dwellings could not be erected; and without dwellings domestic tranquillity, security, culture, and refinement, especially in a rude climate, were all but impossible.