Boats & Great Sea Explorers

Nobody knows who invented the first boat. In earlier times, people made small and simple boats. Those boats could be pieces of wood tied together. They are called rafts. Or those boats could be logs with holes dug out for people to sit in. They are called canoes. Later on, people made bigger boats. They also made better boats. They learned to use a compass to find out where they were in the sea. They began to travel to faraway places.

Zheng He loved to travel. About six hundred years ago, he sailed from China. He went to faraway places. He went to the Middle East and Africa. His Treasure Fleet had more than 30 ships. He managed a crew of nearly 30,000 men. Zheng He helped open up trade routes for China. He brought home strange things he had discovered.