TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE

  Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.

  Footnote anchors are denoted by [number], and the footnotes have been
  placed at the end of the book.

  All changes noted in the ERRATA have been applied to the etext.

  A superscript is denoted by ^x or ^{xx}, for example XIX^e.

  Basic fractions are displayed as ½ ⅓ ¼ etc; other fractions are shown
  in the form a-b/c, for example 280-18/94.

  Some minor changes to the text are noted at the end of the book.




                            SAILING SHIPS




       [Illustration: (A Seventeenth-century English Warship)]




                            SAILING SHIPS

                    THE STORY OF THEIR DEVELOPMENT
                       FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES
                          TO THE PRESENT DAY

                                  BY
                         E. KEBLE CHATTERTON

                          WITH A HUNDRED AND
                         THIRTY ILLUSTRATIONS

                      [Illustration: (colophon)]


                                LONDON
                       SIDGWICK & JACKSON, LTD.
                     3 ADAM STREET, ADELPHI, W.C.
                                 1909




                        _All rights reserved._




                           IN PIAM MEMORIAM
                         PATRIS DILECTISSIMI
                                QVI ME
                          AD MARIS NAVIVMQVE
                               STVDIVM
                           PRIMVS EXCITAVIT




[Illustration]


PREFACE.


This history of sailing ships has been written primarily for the
general reader, in the hope that the sons and daughters of a naval
nation, and of an Empire that stretches beyond the seas, may find
therein a record of some interest and assistance in enlarging and
systematising their ideas on the subject, especially as regards
the ships of earlier centuries. It is not necessary to look far—no
further than the poster-designs on advertisement-hoardings—to observe
the errors into which our artists of to-day are liable to fall
owing to lack of historical knowledge in this subject; and to put
(for instance) triangular headsails with a rectangular sail on the
“bonaventure mizzen-mast” of an early sixteenth-century ship, is an
inaccuracy scarcely to be pardoned.

Quite recently one of the chief librarians in one of our biggest
national treasure-houses informed me that when an artist, who had
been commissioned to illustrate a certain work, came to him for
guidance as to the ships of a recent period, he was at a loss where
to lay his hands on a book which should show him what he wished
to know by picture and description. Only after much search was the
requisite knowledge obtained.

I trust that both the yachtsman and sailorman will find in these
pages something of the same exciting pleasure which has been mine
in tracing the course of the evolutions through which their ships
have passed. Those whose work or amusement it is to acquaint
themselves with the sailing ship and her ways, and for lack of time
and opportunity are unable to seek out the noble pedigree of what
Ruskin truly described as “one of the loveliest things man ever made,
and one of the noblest,” may care to learn what were the changing
conditions which combined to bring about such a highly complex
creature as the modern sailing ship. Perhaps at some time when
handling a rope, a spar, a tiller or a sail, they may have wondered
how it all began; what were the origins of all those various parts
of a ship’s “furniture”; why some essential portions have scarcely
changed; and how other portions are the outcome of time, experiment,
and science. I hope that to neither the amateur nor the professional
sailor I shall seem impertinent if I have attempted to tell them
something about their ship which they did not know before. But if, on
the other hand, I shall have succeeded in increasing their love for
the sailing ship by outlining her career, I trust that this may be
allowed to counterbalance the defects which, in a subject of so vast
a scope, are hardly to be avoided in spite of considerable care and
the generous assistance of many kind friends.

Finally, I make my appeal to the younger generation, to whom ships
and the sea have in all times suggested so much that is bound up with
adventure and brave deeds. The present moment sees us at a stage in
the history of ships when the Royal Navy as a whole, and the Merchant
Service almost entirely, have no longer any convenience for sail.
There is a dire need in the latter for both officers and men, whilst
on shore the conditions of employment are exactly the reverse. Surely
it is only by a mutual adjustment of the two that both problems, on
sea and land, can possibly be overcome; and it is only by winning
the enthusiasm of the boy who is to become father of the man that
the sailor’s love for the sea can be handed on from generation to
generation. We have received from our ancestors a splendid heritage,
a unique legacy—the mastery of the seas. That legacy brings with it
a commensurate responsibility, to retain what our forefathers fought
for so dearly. Perhaps to the healthy-minded Anglo-Saxon boy, not yet
too _blasé_ and civilised to feel no thrill in reading his Marryat,
Cook, Ballantyne, Henty, Fenn, or the glorious sea-fights and
discoveries in history itself—perhaps to him this book may be of some
assistance in visualising the actual ships of each historical period.

I desire to return thanks to many who, from motives of personal
friendship or of love for ships, have so readily lent me their
assistance in the course of this work. If I have omitted to include
the names of any to whom my obligations are due it is from no sense
of ingratitude. Especially I am anxious to return thanks to Dr.
Wallis Budge and Mr. H. R. Hall of the Egyptian Department of the
British Museum, as well as to the officials in other departments
of the same institution, particularly those of the Coin Room, the
Print Room, the Manuscript Room, Greek and Roman Antiquities, and
British and Mediæval Antiquities: to Mr. Clifford Smith of the
Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington, and to Mr. R. C.
Flower of the Public Record Office for assistance in research: to
Dr. Hoyle of the Manchester Museum for permission to use photographs
of two Egyptian models: to the Board of Education for permission
to reproduce photographs of models in the South Kensington Museum:
to the Curator of the Royal Naval College Museum, Greenwich, for
granting special facilities for studying the collection of models:
to the British Consul at Christiania, for assistance in obtaining
photographs of Viking ships: to M. Ernest Leroux for permission to
use the illustration of the _navis actuaria_ found on the Althiburus
mosaic: to the Elder Brethren of Trinity House, jointly with Messrs.
Cassell and Co., for allowing me to reproduce Phineas Pett’s _Royal
Prince_: to the Committee of the Royal Victoria Yacht Club, Ryde,
for permission to reproduce Messrs. West’s photograph of the rare
print of the _Alarm_, Fig. 113: to Captain Roald Amundsen for the
plans of the _Gjöa_: to the authorities of the British Museum for
many illustrations either sketched, photographed, or reproduced
from their catalogues: to Lieut.-Colonel A. Leetham, Curator of the
Royal United Service Museum, Whitehall, for permission to photograph
models and prints: to Captain C. E. Terry for the illustration of
the _Santa Maria_: to Mr. A. E. M. Haes for the photograph of the
_Oimara_: to Messrs. Camper and Nicholsons, Limited, for the plans
of the yacht _Pampas_: to Messrs. White Brothers for the lines of
the yacht _Elizabeth_: to Messrs. Fores for the illustrations of
the _Xarifa_ and _Kestrel_: and to Mr. H. Warington Smyth for the
Nugger in Fig. 8, the two illustrations of Scandinavian and Russian
ships in Figs. 30 and 31, and the American schooner in Fig. 91. I
wish also to acknowledge Mr. Warington Smyth’s extreme courtesy
in offering to allow me to use any of the other sketches in his
delightful book “Mast and Sail in Europe and Asia,” and only regret
that circumstances prevented my being able to avail myself more fully
of so generous an offer.

The illustrations in Figs. 26 and 27 appear by arrangement with
Mr. John Murray: Fig. 51 by arrangement with the Clarendon Press,
Oxford: and Figs. 30, 31, 87-90, 92, 93, 95, 102, 104, 106, 111,
112, 114, 115, and the Plans, by arrangement with the editor of _The
Yachting Monthly_. Thanks are also due to two artists skilled in
marine subjects—to Mr. Charles Dixon for his two pictures in colour,
at once lively and accurate; and to Mr. Norman S. Carr, not only for
the initial letters of the chapters, but for thirty or more sketches
specially drawn for this book.

Finally, I have to express my thanks to Mr. John Masefield, who has
been kind enough to read the proofs, while the book was passing
through the press, and to give me the benefit of his valuable advice.

                                                  E. KEBLE CHATTERTON.

  _June 1909._




ERRATA


  P. 60, line 8, _for_ “with three reefs already taken in” _read_
  “close-reefed.” (Fig. 13 shows three turns taken with the brails or
  bunt-lines, so as to make a close reef.)

  P. 86, line 18, _for_ “tilt” _read_ “rake.”

  P. 199, line 1, _for_ “foremast” _read_ “foresail.”

       ”  line 15, _for_ “bill-hooks” _read_ “shear-hooks.”

       ”  line 32, _for_ “anchor” _read_ “a foul anchor.”

  P. 203, line 19, _for_ “face” _read_ “case.”

  P. 214, line 34, _for_ “bill-hooks” _read_ “shear-hooks.”

  P. 262, line 3, _after_ “driver” _insert_ “or spanker.”

  P. 275, line 15, _for_ “iron” _read_ “wire.”

       ”  line 17, _for_ “braces” _read_ “brace-pendants.”




                              CONTENTS.


  CHAPTER                                                         PAGE

         LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS                                    xiii

     I.  INTRODUCTORY                                                1

    II.  EARLY EGYPTIAN SHIPS FROM ABOUT 6000 B.C.                  20

   III.  ANCIENT SHIPS OF PHŒNICIA, GREECE, AND ROME                46

    IV.  THE EARLY SHIPS OF NORTHERN EUROPE                         89

     V.  THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SAILING SHIP FROM THE
             EIGHTH CENTURY TO THE YEAR 1485                       128

    VI.  FROM HENRY VII. TO THE DEATH OF ELIZABETH
             (1485-1603)                                           170

   VII.  FROM THE ACCESSION OF JAMES I. TO THE CLOSE OF THE
             EIGHTEENTH CENTURY                                    222

  VIII.  THE SAILING SHIP IN THE NINETEENTH AND TWENTIETH
             CENTURIES                                             254

    IX.  THE FORE-AND-AFT RIG AND ITS DEVELOPMENTS;
             COASTERS, FISHING BOATS, YACHTS, &C.                  281

         GLOSSARY                                                  335

         BIBLIOGRAPHY                                              339

         INDEX                                                     345




                       LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.


  FIGURE                                                          PAGE

      A Seventeenth-century English Warship  _To face title-page_
        From a painting by Charles Dixon.

      Hay-Barge                            _Headpiece to Preface_
        Sketch by N. S. Carr.

   1. Burmese Junk                                                   8

   2. Norwegian “Jaegt”                                             13

   3. Egyptian Ship of about 6000 B.C.                              22
        From an amphora found in Upper Egypt, and now in the
        British Museum (Painted Pottery of Predynastic Period,
        Case 5, No. 35324).

   4. Egyptian Ship of the Fifth Dynasty                            30
        From wall-paintings in the Temple of Deir-el-Bahari.

   5 and 6. Model of an Egyptian Ship of the Twelfth
           Dynasty                                      _To face_   34
        From a tomb at Rifeh, excavated 1906-7. Photographs by
        courtesy of Dr. Hoyle, Director of the Manchester Museum,
        where the model is preserved.

   7. Egyptian Ship                                     _To face_   40
        From wall-paintings in the Temple of Deir-el-Bahari.

   8. An Egyptian Nugger                                            43
        Sketch by H. Warington Smyth; from his “Mast and Sail,”
        by courtesy of the author and Mr. John Murray.

   9. Phœnician Ship                                                52
        From a coin of Sidon, _c._ 450 B.C., in the British
        Museum. Twice the actual size.

  10. Phœnician Ship                                                54
        From a coin of Sidon, _c._ 450 B.C., in the Hunterian
        Collection, Glasgow. Twice the actual size.

  11. Greek Ship                                                    58
        From a Bœotian fibula of the eighth century B.C., in the
        British Museum (First Vase Room, Case D, No. 3204).

  12. Greek War Galley                                              59
        From a vase of about 500 B.C., in the British Museum
        (Second Vase Room, Table-case H, No. B. 436).

  13. Greek Merchantman                                             61
        From the same vase.

  14. Stern of a Greek Ship                                         64
        From a coin of Phaselis, of about the fifth century B.C.,
        in the British Museum (Greek and Roman Life Room, Case 1,
        No. 36). Twice the actual size.

  15. Boar’s-head Bow of a Greek Ship                               64
        From the same coin. Twice the actual size.

  16. The Ship of Odysseus                                          66
        From a Greek vase, _c._ 500 B.C., in the British Museum
        (Third Vase Room, Case G, No. E. 440).

  17. Terra-cotta Model of a Greek Ship                             68
        Model of the sixth century B.C., in the British Museum
        (Greek and Roman Life Room, Case 53, No. A. 202).

  18. A Coin of Apollonia, showing Shape of Anchor                  72
        Coin of about 420 B.C., in the British Museum (Greek and
        Roman Life Room, Case 2, No. 21). Twice the actual size.

  19. A Roman Warship                                               73
        From Lazare de Baïf’s “Annotationes ... de re navali,”
        Paris, 1536, p. 164.

  20. Roman Ship                                                    75
        From the same book, p. 167.

  21. Roman Merchant Ships                              _To face_   80
        From a relief, _c._ 200 A.D.

  22. Roman Ship entering Harbour                                   82
        From an earthenware lamp, c. 200 A.D., in the British
        Museum (Greek and Roman Life Room, Case 53, No. 518).

  23. Fishing-boat in Harbour                                       83
        From another lamp, as the last.

  24. Navis Actuaria                                                87
        From a recently discovered mosaic at Althiburus, near
        Tunis; reproduced by kind permission from M. Leroux’
        “Monuments et Mémoires,” Paris, 1905.

  25. The Viking Boat dug up at Brigg, Lincolnshire     _To face_   96
        From a photograph, taken during its excavation in
        1886, and supplied by Mr. John Scott, of Brigg.

  26. Ancient Scandinavian Rock-carving                            111
        From Du Chaillu’s “Viking Age,” by courtesy of Mr. John
        Murray.

  27. Viking Ship-form Grave                                       114
        From the same.

  28. The Gogstad Viking Ship                           _To face_  118
        From a photograph by O. Voering, Christiania.

  29. The Gogstad Viking Ship                           _To face_  120
        From a photograph by O. Voering, Christiania.

  30. Norwegian Ship                                               120
        From a sketch by H. Warington Smyth, by courtesy of
        the artist.

  31. Russian Ship                                                 121
        As the last.

  32. Harold’s Ships; from the Bayeux Tapestry          _To face_  134
        From a photograph of the replica at South Kensington.

  33. William the Conqueror’s Ships; from the Bayeux Tapestry      136
        As the last.

  34. Lading Arms and Wine; from the Bayeux Tapestry               138
        As the last.

  35. Mediterranean Warship of the Thirteenth Century              142
        From a drawing.

  36. A Fourteenth-Century Dromon                                  144
        From a drawing.

  37. Seal of Winchelsea                                           150
        From the original in the British Museum. Actual size.

  38. Seal of Hastings                                             151
        From the original in the British Museum. Actual size.

  39. Thirteenth-century English Ship                   _To face_  152
        From the model by Frank H. Mason, now in the South
        Kensington Museum.

  40. Seal of Dam, West Flanders                                   155
        From the original in the British Museum. Actual size.

  41. Panel of the Shrine of St. Ursula, after Memling (1489)      165

  42. Seal of La Rochelle                                          167
        From the original in the British Museum. Actual size.

  43. A Caravel of the End of the Fifteenth Century     _To face_  178
        From the model by Frank H. Mason, now in the South
        Kensington Museum.

  44. A Fifteenth-century Caravel                       _To face_  180
        From the model in the United Service Museum, Whitehall.

  45. Columbus’s Flagship, the _Santa Maria_            _To face_  182
        By courtesy of Capt. C. E. Terry, from the model constructed
        by him.

  46. The French _Cordelière_ and the English _Regent_  _To face_  184
        From MS. Fr. 1672 in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris;
        reproduced by courtesy of Prof. W. Bang, Louvain, from
        the “Enterlude of Youth,” 1905.

  47. The Embarkation of Henry VIII. at Dover in 1520   _To face_  186
        Showing the _Henri Grâce à Dieu_. Photograph by W. M.
        Spooner & Co., from the painting by Holbein at Hampton
        Court Palace.

  48. Two of Henry VIII.’s Ships—The _Murrian_          _To face_  188

  49. Two of Henry VIII.’s Ships—The _Struse_           _To face_  188
        From a roll of 1546 in the Pepysian Library, Cambridge,
        by kind permission of the Master and Fellows of Magdalene
        College.

  50. The _Ark Royal_, Elizabeth’s Flagship. Built
            in 1587                                     _To face_  198
        From a contemporary print in the British Museum.

  51. Elizabethan Man-of-war                            _To face_  138
        From F. P. Barnard’s “Companion to English History”
        (Clarendon Press, 1902).

  52. The Spanish Armada coming up Channel              _To face_  206
        From “The Tapestry Hangings of the House of Lords,”
        engraved by John Pine, 1739.

  53. The _Black Pinnesse_, which brought Home the Body of
            Sir P. Sidney                               _To face_  208
        From “Celebritas et Pompa Funeris,” &c., by T. Lant, 1587.

  54. A Galleon of the Time of Elizabeth                _To face_  210
        From a contemporary print in the British Museum.

  55. Spanish Galleons                                  _To face_  212
        From a print in the British Museum, _c._ 1560.

  56. Spanish Treasure-Frigate of about 1590            _To face_  214
        From the original drawing by an English spy, by
        permission of the Records Office.

  57. Mediterranean Galley                                         217
        Sketched from a model in the South Kensington Museum.

  58. An Early Seventeenth-century Galley               _To face_  216
        From Joseph Furttenbach’s “Architectura Navalis,” 1629.

  59. A Full-rigged Ship of the Early Seventeenth
            Century                                     _To face_  218
        From the same.

  60. The _Prince Royal_                                _To face_  226
        From the painting at Trinity House, by permission of
        the Elder Brethren. Block by arrangement with Messrs.
        Cassell & Co., from Traill and Mann’s “Social England,”
        iv. 69.

  61. The _Sovereign of the Seas_. Built in 1637        _To face_  230
        From an engraving in the British Museum.

  62. Bomb Ketch                                        _To face_  236
        From a print in the United Service Museum, Whitehall.

  63. The _Royal Charles_. Built in 1672                _To face_  240
        From the model in the South Kensington Museum.

  64. A Dutch Man-of-war of about the End of the
            Seventeenth Century                         _To face_  242
        From the model in the United Service Museum, Whitehall.

  65. The _Terrible_, a Two-decker captured from the
            French in 1747                              _To face_  244
        From a print in the United Service Museum, Whitehall.

  66. H.M.S. _Royal George_. 100 guns, 2047 tons.
            Foundered in 1782                           _To face_  246
        From an engraving by T. Baston, in the British Museum.

  67. Nelson’s _Victory_. 2162 tons. Built in 1765      _To face_  248
        From a photograph by S. Cribb.

  68. The Stern of H.M.S. _Victory_, showing Poop
            Lanterns                                    _To face_  250
        From a photograph by S. Cribb.

  69. Corvette, 340 tons, of about 1780                 _To face_  252
        From the model in the South Kensington Museum.

  70. The _Newcastle_, an East Indiaman                 _To face_  258
        Photograph by Hughes & Son, Ltd.

  71. Spithead: Boat’s Crew recovering an Anchor        _To face_  226
        From a photograph by Hanfstaengl of the painting by
        J. M. W. Turner in the National Gallery.

  72. A West Indiaman of 1820                           _To face_  260
        From a print in the British Museum.

  73. The _Ariel_ and _Taeping_, September 1866         _To face_  266
        From an engraving in the South Kensington Museum.

  74. The Iron Clipper _Stonehouse_. Built in 1866      _To face_  268
        From the model in the South Kensington Museum.

  75. The Iron Barque _Macquarie_. Built in 1875        _To face_  270
        Photograph by Hughes & Son, Ltd.

  76. The _Desdemona_. Built in 1875                    _To face_  272
        Photograph by Hughes & Son, Ltd.

  77. The _Olive Bank_. Steel Four-masted Barque. Built
            in 1892                                     _To face_  274
        Photograph by J. Adamson & Son, Rothesay.

  78. A Modern Four-masted Barque, and the _Mauretania_ _To face_  276
        From a painting by Charles Dixon.

  79. The _Queen Margaret_. Built in 1893               _To face_  272
        With Fig. 76. Photograph by Hughes & Son, Ltd.

  80. A First-rater of 1815, showing Details of Spars and
            Rigging                                     _To face_  280

  81. Full-rigged Ship                                             279
        Sail-plan, with referenced list of names.

  82. From “River Scene with Sailing Boats.” By Jan Van der
            Cappelle                                               285
        Sketched from the original painting, No. 964 in the
        National Gallery.

  83. A Modern Dutch Schuyt                                        286

  84. “A Fresh Gale at Sea.” By W. Van der Welde                   287
        Sketched from the original painting, No. 150 in the
        National Gallery.

  85. “River Scene.” By W. Van der Welde                           288
        Sketched from the original painting, No. 978 in the
        National Gallery.

  86. The Bawley                                                   290

  87. The Schooner _Pinkie_ (1800-50)                              294

  88. The _Fredonia_. Built in 1891                                295

  89. Gloucester Schooner, A.D. 1901                               296

  90. Gloucester Schooner, A.D. 1906                               297

  91. An American Four-masted Schooner                             298
        Sketched by H. Warington Smyth; from his “Mast and Sail,”
        by courtesy of the author and Mr. John Murray.

  92. A Barquentine off the South Foreland                         299

  93. Barquentine with Stuns’ls                                    300

  94. The _Fantôme_, 18-ton Brig. Launched 1838         _To face_  298
        From the model in the South Kensington Museum.

  95. H.M.S. _Martin_, Training-Brig. Launched 1836     _To face_  300

  96. A Hermaphrodite Brig                                         301

  97. The _Tillikum_, Schooner-rigged “Dug-out”                    302

  98. Lowestoft Drifter                                            304

  99. Thames Barge                                                 305

  100. Norfolk Wherry                                              306

  101. Dhow-rigged Yacht                                _To face_  306
         From the model in the South Kensington Museum.

  102. Suez Dhows, with a Sibbick Rater                            308
         Sketched by H. P. Butler.

  103. Mediterranean Felucca                                       309
         Sketched from the model in the South Kensington Museum.

  104. Hailam Junk                                                 311
         Sketched by H. Warington Smyth.

  105. Chinese Junk                                                313
         Sketched from the model in the South Kensington Museum.

  106. Blankenberg Boat                                            314

  107. French “Chasse-Marée”                                       315

  108. Scotch “Zulu”                                               316

  109. Penzance Lugger                                             317

  110. Deal Galley Punt                                            318

  111. The Yacht _Kestrel_. Owned by the Earl of
             Yarborough                                 _To face_  310

  112. The Yacht _Xarifa_. Owned by the Earl of Wilton  _To face_ 312

  113. The Schooner _Alarm_. Rebuilt 1852               _To face_  314
         Photograph by G. West & Son from a print, by kind
         permission of the Committee of the Royal Victoria
         Yacht Club, Ryde.

  114. The _Oimara_. Built in 1867                      _To face_  316

  115. The _Bloodhound_. Built in 1874                  _To face_  316

  116. The Schooner-Yacht _Sunbeam_. Owned by Lord
             Brassey.                                   _To face_  318
         Photograph by West & Son.

  117. The Yawl _Jullanar_. Built in 1875                          329
         From the model in the South Kensington Museum.

  118. The _Satanita_. Built in 1893                    _To face_  320
         Photograph by West & Son.

  119. King Edward VII.’s Cutter _Britannia_. Launched
             1893                                       _To face_  322
         Photograph by S. Cribb.

  120. The _Valkyrie I._ Owned by the Earl of Dunraven  _To face_  324
         Photograph by West & Son.

  121. The Ship-rigged Yacht _Valhalla_. Built in 1892  _To face_  326
         Photograph by West & Son.

  122. The American Cup Defender _Columbia_. Launched
             in 1899                                    _To face_  328
         Photograph by West & Son.

  123. The Schooner-Yacht _Meteor_. Owned by H.M. the
             German Emperor                             _To face_  330
         Photograph by S. Cribb.

  124. _White Heather II._, 23-Mètre Cutter             _To face_  332
         Photograph by West & Son.

  125. _Shamrock IV._, 23-Mètre Cutter. Launched 1908   _To face_  334
         Photograph by West & Son.




PLANS.

(AT END OF VOLUME.)

  PLAN

  1. The _Gjöa_: Sail and Rigging Plan (see p. 291).

  2.  ”     ”    Longitudinal Section (see p. 291).

  3.  ”     ”    Deck Plan (see p. 292).

  4. The _Royal Sovereign_, George III.’s Yacht (see p. 322).

  5. Schooner _Elizabeth_: Sail Plan (see p. 331).

  6.    ”          ”    Deck Plan (see p. 331).

  7.    ”          ”    Longitudinal Section (see p. 331).

  8. Schooner _Pampas_: Sail and Rigging Plan (see p. 332).

  9.    ”          ”    Longitudinal and Horizontal Sections
                          (see p. 332).




CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY.


A short time ago one of our Naval Museums came into possession of a
certain model of a sailing ship. She was a fine vessel, one of the
first of the old “wooden walls” to be built in the reign of the late
Queen. The Curator wisely determined to have this model fully rigged
with all her spars, sails, and gear, just as the original had been in
her days of active service. Every detail was correct; every halyard
and brace were made of proportionate thickness. Even the right kind
of “stuff” was found, after some difficulty, for the cable. An
efficient rigger, too, was found, who happened to have served on this
same ship.

Finally, when the model was completed the Curator looked at it and
said, “_Now_ it will be possible for those who come after us to tell
exactly how a sailing ship was rigged; in a few years’ time there
won’t be a man alive who will know how to do it.”

It is with a similar desire, to preserve all that can be gathered,
that an attempt is made in the present book to collect into one
continuous narrative the historical data available concerning the
evolution of that fast-disappearing object—the sailing ship. With
the advent of steam was hoisted the signal for abolishing sail; and
although for a long time the famous old clippers put up a keen fight,
yet for commercial purposes, when passengers and mails, merchandise
and perishable food, had to be hurried from one side of the world to
the other without loss of time, it became impossible for a sailing
ship, that depended so entirely on the mercy of wind and weather,
to compete successfully with the steamship. By 1840, it will be
remembered, steamers had commenced crossing the Atlantic, and within
the next ten or fifteen years the sailing ship, except for such long
voyages as to China, Australia, and other distant countries, was
for ever doomed. Perhaps these beautiful creatures, oversparred and
undermanned though they are nowadays, will be allowed, in spite of
competition and low freights, to remain with us a little longer. It
is probable that the introduction of the motor, instead of assisting
to complete the departure of sails, will help in their being
retained: for it has now been found commercially profitable to instal
the internal-combustion engine in ships of a size not exceeding about
seven hundred tons. By this means sail can be used in a fair wind,
and the motor can take her along in calms, as well as in tolerable
weather against a head wind. In entering harbours and leaving there
will also be a saving of the charge for a tug. Perhaps when the
marine-motor industry has become more perfect it will be possible to
fit a sufficiently powerful motor to a 4000-ton barque.

If that should be possible, then it would be indeed welcome news
to hear that the sluicing ebb of sailing ships and sailormen had
stopped. (For, of course, no one nowadays, except perhaps the lady
passenger, would ever think of honouring the marine mechanics on
board a liner or battleship with the title of “sailor,” whose
knowledge of seamanship is so elementary that they can as a rule
neither sail a boat nor make a splice, let alone go up aloft.) But at
present, when it is difficult to get enough officers and men for the
steam merchant service, it is doubtful if the sailing ship, except
in the case of a few deep-sea vessels and the coasters, fishermen,
pilots, and yachts round our coasts, will be encouraged to remain
with us.

In setting forth whatever may be of interest in the following pages
I have, following the example of that illustrious Elizabethan,
Richard Hakluyt, taken “infinite cares,” travelled many miles from
port to port to talk with every kind of sailorman—deep-sea, coaster,
or yacht’s hand—with fishermen, pilots, shipbuilders, riggers,
marine architects, and sail-makers. In addition to this, I have been
fortunate in gaining access to libraries containing, in various
languages and of both ancient and modern date, invaluable accounts
of ships of earlier days. The study of coins (curiously overlooked
by some writers on ancient ships) has enabled me to submit some
definite knowledge concerning craft of the classical age. The study
of old fonts in this country, especially in those churches which
were dedicated in the name of St. Nicholas, the patron of sailors,
has helped to confirm the otherwise scanty evidence for the period
between the tenth and fourteenth centuries. But perhaps the most
valuable and interesting material is the illustration of an Egyptian
sailing ship of the XII. Dynasty. This model, rigged for sailing up
and rowing down the Nile, will be discussed in Chapter II. Hitherto
we have had to depend for our knowledge of Egyptian ships on the
illustrations found on the tombs. Although in recent years some
models of boats have been discovered in these tombs, yet that which I
am enabled to reproduce (Figs. 5 and 6) is the only one showing the
boat properly rigged that has hitherto been unearthed. This model was
discovered in the season of 1906-1907 at Rifeh, by Professor Flinders
Petrie, and is the finest example that has yet reached England. It is
now in the Manchester Museum, and I am indebted to Dr. Hoyle, the
Director of the Museum, for his courtesy in enabling me to reproduce
this very interesting model here.

Notwithstanding the deplorable fact that there are gaps existing at
those critical stages where information would be the most welcome, it
is nevertheless possible to construct a fairly continuous narrative
of the development of the sailing ship. It will be noticed that in
addition to the information to be found in ancient tombs of Egypt we
have the evidence of ancient coins, vases, terra-cotta and wooden
models, lamps, monuments, excavations in Scandinavia, England,
Scotland, Germany. Coming to more modern times, there is the Bayeux
Tapestry, with its excellent copy in the South Kensington Museum.
We have, too, the pictorial representations on ancient seals and
coins of this country. There are some reproductions of ships in
old manuscripts; but it is an unfortunate fact that, except in
comparatively modern times, it is rare to find the ship commemorated
in paintings. Even when it is found, it is often represented with
less regard to marine accuracy than to pictorial effect. When one
considers the high position both Venice and Genoa occupied during
the Middle Ages, alike in respect of art and maritime pursuits, it
is difficult to understand why so remarkably few pictures of ships
remain to us among the Old Masters. In both religious and secular
paintings the ship is conspicuous by its absence. Perhaps it may
be that artists had not received sufficient encouragement to paint
marine subjects and that the gulf which to-day exists between the
landsman and the sailor was equally great then.

However, various painters have seen fit to take the Pilgrimage of St.
Ursula as their theme. Memling’s celebrated panels on the reliquary
of that saint, now in St. John’s Hospital, Bruges, are of interest
for our purpose, for no fewer than four of the six panels contain
pictures of ships belonging to the period of the artist. The date
of these miniatures is some time not later than the year 1489. Old
printed books of the sixteenth century onwards frequently contain
illustrations of ships of the time. Among the books, for instance,
presented to the South Kensington Museum on the death of Lady Dilke
will be found an interesting illustrated French translation of the
Acts of the Apostles. The ships (of mediæval design) illustrating
the Voyages of St. Paul are of value as showing the rig and details
of the craft contemporary with the artist. These and similar
illustrations, excepting always when the artist has become too
fantastic and imaginative, are important links in connecting the
story of the ships of ancient days with the modern full-rigged
ship. Coming down to the seventeenth century, the paintings of
the Dutch artists Jan Van de Cappelle, of Willem Van de Velde the
younger, Bakhuizen, Ruisdael, and Cuyp give us the most interesting
details as to rigging and hull. Claude’s picture, in the National
Gallery, of the “Embarkation of St. Ursula,” painted towards the
end of the seventeenth century, shows the high-pooped ship of his
own day. Charles Brooking of the eighteenth century, Turner and
Clarkson Stanfield of the nineteenth, show us in their pictures
many invaluable minutiæ of sailing ships. And even if Ruskin’s
criticism hold good, that Stanfield’s ships never look weather-beaten
but “always newly painted and clean,” yet for our purpose this is
no disadvantage; and it will be appreciated still more in a few
years when our descendants go into art galleries to seek out from
contemporary paintings the appearance of ships of the Victorian
period.

Happily the ships of our day have been perpetuated by such admirable
marine artists as Moore, Wyllie, Vicat Cole, Napier Hemy, Dixon,
Somerscales, Tuke, and others. But in addition to pictures, we have
at hand some hundreds of models of vessels in the South Kensington
Museum, the Royal Naval College, Greenwich, the Royal United Service
Museum, Whitehall, in the Louvre, in Continental churches, museums,
and arsenals, and in many private collections. Some of these models
in Greenwich and South Kensington have been rigged from historical
information in the museums themselves. It is impossible to deny the
important influence that these wonderful little ships may have on
the youthful minds of our nation, which has had the privilege for
so many years of being called maritime. But to the student of ships
of any age they are the greatest aid in assisting him—far greater,
indeed, than pages of description, far greater also than the work
of any painter—to realise the vessels that carried our ancestors
across the seas. I am as certain that we owe to the Government the
greatest thanks for putting these facilities before the public as I
am uncertain that the same public appreciates them in the manner they
deserve.

From all these sources, then, already enumerated, we are to begin to
reconstruct as far as possible the ships of all ages. If we should be
accused of arguing at times by inference without actual facts before
us, let us be allowed to say this much: there are signs in a ship’s
lines and rigging which, to the landsman, are devoid of meaning, but
to the man who has been wont to handle ships, and perhaps to design
and build them, they are full of significance. Generally speaking,
to the former a model is a nicely-carved piece of wood, adorned with
a maze of complicated strings. Curves of hull, the position of the
masts, the amount of sail area aft or forward, go for nothing. To
the expert every inch of rope has its definite value, every line of
her design speaks of speed or seaworthiness, or of the opposite. The
careful balance of sails will show whether she is, to use sailor
slang, “as handy as a gimlet” or as hard-mouthed a beast as ever
was governed by a rudder. Therefore, if, in looking at the lines
and rig of a ship of the Phœnicians, we should say, without being
able to quote any historian of antiquity, that she would never go
to windward because her sail area was deficient and her draught of
water too slight, and assume from this that the Phœnicians always
waited for a fair wind or rowed with oars, we must not be accused of
proving too much. This is not a matter for the archæologist, but for
the practised mariner with some knowledge of the theory of his art.
Any sailor, for instance, on looking at a model or illustration of a
Burmese junk (see Fig. 1), would tell you at once that her lines and
rig are such as would make her useless for going against the wind. He
knows this by _inference_. As a _fact_, he learns afterwards that,
like the boats of the Egyptians—which she much resembles in general
shape, in mast, and in sail—these junks can only sail before the wind
(which is usually favourable) in ascending the river Irawadi, and
return with the current.

[Illustration: FIG. 1. BURMESE JUNK.]

A nation exhibits its characteristics, its exact state of progress
and degree of refinement in three things: its art, its literature,
and its ships. Indeed we might go so far as to affirm that these
last are but a branch of the first. Just as the house was at first
merely a thing of utility, becoming in the course of time adorned
with carvings and decoration, so the ship, from being the rough,
clumsy dug-out, with the advance of civilisation becomes adorned
at first with animals’ heads, with eyes, with a human head, with
coloured hull, and at a subsequent stage with sails bearing devices
of high artistic merit. Finally, gilded portholes and gilded sterns
were added to the ship, so that, to quote the description of Charles
I.’s _Sovereign of the Seas_, “she was so gorgeously ornamented with
carving and gilding that she seemed to have been designed rather for
a vain display of magnificence than for the service of the State.”

The development of the ship, then, is parallel to the development of
the State. In the rude ages she is a rough creature, remaining more
like the tree out of which she is made than a thing of being. In
the hands of a nation that has reached a high degree of civilisation,
though she is still made of oak from the forest, yet she has lost
all resemblance to the tree-trunk. Instead, she has acquired a most
wonderful personality of her own. The wood of the tree has become
merely the means of expressing the most admirable combination of
delicacy and strength, of slender lines and powerful masses.

Thus we must go to the East, the birthplace of civilisation, to trace
the beginnings of our subject. We shall for this reason start from
Egypt and Phœnicia, and, tracing the development through Greek and
Roman times, advance to Northern and Western Europe and further west
still to America. And in covering a period of roughly 8000 years, in
spite of the enormous difference in time, in nations, in geographical
and other conditions, we shall find that no feature is more amazing
than the extraordinary spirit of conservatism which has spread itself
universally over both ships and their sailors. So remarkable are the
examples of this, even under widely opposed conditions, that I have
thought it worth while here to submit some of the more important ones
as being worthy of special consideration.

First, let us take the shape of the Egyptian ship, from which the
Greeks and Romans eventually obtained their shipbuilding ideas. The
high poop and the rockered bow with its bold sweep aft have, it is
not too much to assert, influenced the whole world’s shipping ever
since. True, the ancient galleys of the Greeks and Romans possess a
straighter keel and a pointed bow. But this was done for a purpose.
These galleys were fighting ships; and as the ram had to be placed
forward in such a manner that keel, stempost, and strut-frames
centred their combined force at the extreme point, the shape of the
bow could not follow that of the Egyptians. The keel, too, was flat
and straight, because it was the custom of the Greeks and Romans to
haul their galleys ashore nearly every night. Again, we must bear in
mind that the Roman or Greek war vessel was primarily a rowing boat
and not a sailing ship, and that mast and sail were always lowered
before going into battle. Yet, for all that, the Greek vases bearing
pictures of war galleys still show the Egyptian stern. But when we
come to consider the Greek and Roman merchant ships, we find the
Egyptian stern and a modified Egyptian bow unmistakably present. And
we must remember that the merchant ships were primarily sailing ships
and only used their oars as auxiliaries.

Throughout the ages many of these general lines of the Egyptian
ships have been followed. We see them appearing in the prehistoric
ships of Norway, in the Viking ships of old, and in the ships of the
Baltic to-day. We see this conservatism in the ships of the twelfth,
thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries, in the caravels and caracks
and galleons of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. We see it
down to about the time of the _Royal George_ in 1746; and even since
then, when the great sweep from bow up to the extreme height of the
poop-deck was modified until it practically disappeared, yet we
find traces of it in the forecastle and raised quarter-deck of the
modern sailing ship. And to continue the argument one step further,
I suppose if you could by sending a current of electricity through
one of the Egyptian naval architects, now lying as a mummy in one of
our museums, bring him to life, so that you might take him to see
the yachts racing during Cowes Week, he would not hesitate to say
that such ships as _White Heather II._ and the newest _Shamrock_ were
based on the designs he had made for his masters under the Twelfth
Dynasty. If the reader will take the trouble of comparing the Rifeh
model (Figs. 5 and 6) with the lines of the latest British yachts
now being built under the new universal rule, and then recollect how
many years have passed in the interim, he will not cease to wonder
that the same “overhang” at bow and stern is as prevalent on the
Solent as it was on the Nile. Whatever else these facts may prove,
they certainly show what a high state of civilisation the Egyptian
had attained; more, perhaps, than we realise at present. The naval
architects of that time must indeed have lacked as little that we
could teach them in design nowadays as—we know from subsequent
excavations—the shipbuilders of Viking times could learn from our
shipbuilders of to-day.

An additional proof of the wisdom and knowledge of the ancients is to
be found in the rig of their ships. The squaresail of the Egyptians
was very like that used subsequently by the Greeks and Romans, and
afterwards by the Vikings and many of the Norwegian and Russian ships
to-day. It survived, moreover, beyond the Middle Ages, the only
important difference being that three and sometimes two additional
masts were provided with squaresails, with a lateen sail on the
mizzen and a spritsail and sprit topsail forward. Thus, though the
headsails of a modern full-rigged ocean ship have been altered during
the last hundred and fifty years, yet the arrangement of her lower
courses is practically that of the single sail of the Egyptians,
omitting for the present certain details which do not alter the
method of harnessing the wind as a means of propulsion. They had in
these early times learned the value of stretching a sail on yards.
They had, besides, understood where to place backstays and a forestay
to support the mast, and they had adopted the use of braces to the
yards as well as of topping lifts.

The eyes painted on the ships of the Greeks and Romans still survive
to-day in the hawse holes on either side of a ship’s bow. And this
belief of the ancients that by means of these eyes the vessel could
see her way was but one article in the general creed still shared by
every sailor, amateur and professional alike, that a ship, of all the
creations of man, is indeed a living thing. Mr. F. T. Bullen, in a
delightful little essay, has demonstrated the varying ways in which
a ship will manifest her personality. In “The Way of the Ship” Mr.
Bullen also remarks: “Kipling has done more, perhaps, than any other
living writer to point out how certain fabrics of man’s construction
become invested with individuality of an unmistakable kind, and of
course so acute an observer cannot fail to notice how pre-eminently
is this the case with ships.”

Though you may build two ships on the same yard from the same plans
by the same builder, yet their personalities are different. The
yachtsmen who elect to have a one-design class know very well that
though you may raffle as to the ownership of each ship, yet there
will always be one or two of the fleet that will be superior to the
rest. But the ancients were before the yachtsmen in discovering that
a mere contrivance of wood and metal should have a distinct character
of its own.

The decoration of the bow and stern of the ship has existed for
many hundreds of years; and though the figurehead was especially
prominent during the Middle Ages, it is now fast disappearing both
from sailing ships of commerce and from yachts also. On steamers it
is hardly ever seen except on the steam yacht. The decorated stern,
too, so prevalent up to the eighteenth century, has now vanished;
although the final traces of this may be noticed in the old-fashioned
architecture to which the modern Royal steam yachts of this country
still cling, and in the gold beading which frequently ornaments the
name of a steamship under her stern.

In Northern latitudes we find the most extraordinary cases of
historical obstinacy; the rig and hull of the Scandinavians have
remained practically unaltered for some two or three thousand
years. The very word “snekkja,” applied to the ancient longships of
the Scandinavians, is still used to-day. Moreover, the “bonnet,”
which was attached to the foot of the sail to give additional
area—unlaced, of course, in dirty weather—was used by the Vikings;
was adopted from them by the ships of mediæval England; and is still
used to-day by the ships of Scandinavia, and in England by the
Lowestoft “drifters” that go forth to fish in the North Sea, as well
as by the pleasure and trading wherries that sail up and down the
Norfolk Broads. Fig. 2 shows a Norwegian “jaegt,” with bonnet and
bowlines.

[Illustration: FIG. 2. NORWEGIAN “JAEGT.”]

The influence of this dogged conservative spirit of the Norwegians
is to be seen extending over Great Britain in other ways. No one
who has visited the Orkney and Shetland Isles can have failed to
have noticed the close similarity between their boats and those of
the Norwegian. Until about forty years ago their fishing boat was
exactly a Norwegian “yawl,” the most obvious descendant from the
lines of a Viking ship. Indeed, until about the year 1860 all the
larger fishing boats of the Shetlands were imported in boards direct
from Norway ready for putting together at Lerwick. The type is still
farther preserved in the whale-boats that are despatched from the
mother ships in various parts of the world to harpoon the cachalot.
And, not to weary the reader with yet more examples of the great
influence which these Viking ships have had on the naval architecture
of our country, it is interesting to remark that the latest fashion
in yacht design is the so-called “canoe-stern” or “double-ender.”
This, of course, derives its inspiration from the Norwegian ships of
the present day; and, as we have already said, they in their turn
have conservatively held to the models of their ancestors. Whether,
as some have thought, the Viking “double-ender” can trace a direct
descent from the ships of Egypt is a point that we must defer to
another chapter.

Next to the squaresail rig, none has survived so persistently as
the lateen. I think that in all probability it was adapted, a few
centuries before the introduction of Christianity, from the Egyptian
squaresail. Its very appearance and the corner of the world in which
it is found as the prevailing rig both suggest that. It is reasonable
to assume that in the course of years, when the more experienced
Easterns began to discover the art of sailing against the wind and
to find that the rig of the Nile boats was not suitable for this,
there would be evolved a modification of the Egyptian sail to allow
of tacking. This, probably, was the origin of the lateen sail of the
dhow. It is of extreme antiquity, and has endured with but little
alteration from the time of Alexander the Great, about 350 B.C. The
prevalence of this kind of rig in the Red Sea, the Indian Ocean, off
the East Coast of Africa, especially as far south as Zanzibar, is
well known. The fact that it is still found everywhere up and down
the Mediterranean, on the Nile and on Swiss lakes, shows how firmly
established did this lateen rig become in the course of time. As we
shall see, at a subsequent stage the lateen sail was adopted by our
mediæval ships for the mizzen, and this continued right down till the
close of the eighteenth century. It will assist us to realise this
conservatism if we remember that the ships of St. Paul’s time were of
a similar kind to these Eastern ships of which we are now speaking.
Let me here be allowed to quote again from an author who has sailed
in every sea and been preserved to tell us in so many charming
records what many others have seen but not troubled to notice. In a
further essay on “The Sea in the New Testament” Mr. Bullen, referring
to the ships in which St. Paul voyaged, remarks:

“On the East African coast, even to this day, we find precisely the
same kind of vessels, the same primitive ideas of navigation, the
same absence of even the most elementary notions of comfort, the same
touching faith in its being always fine weather as evinced by the
absence of any precautions against a storm.

“Such a vessel as this [_i.e._, St. Paul’s] carried one huge sail
bent to a yard resembling a gigantic fishing-rod, whose butt, when
the sail was set, came nearly down to the deck, while the tapering
end soared many feet above the masthead. As it was the work of
all hands to hoist it, and the operation took a long time, when
once it was hoisted it was kept so if possible, and the nimble
sailors, with their almost prehensile toes, climbed by the scanty
rigging and, clinging to the yard, gave the sail a bungling furl.”
Again, referring to the sailors’ activities on the ship in which
St. Paul was sailing, Mr. Bullen goes on: “They sounded and got
twenty fathoms, and in a little while found the water had shoaled
to fifteen. Then they performed a piece of seamanship which may be
continually seen in execution on the East African coast to-day—they
let their anchors down to their full scope of cable and prayed for
daylight. The Arabs do it in fair weather or foul—lower the sail,
slack down the anchor, and go to sleep. She will bring up before she
hits anything.” I have received a like testimony from one who has
also cruised in those parts within recent years.

The prevalence of the fighting top has been maintained from the
time of the Egyptians down to the present day. To mention but a few
instances, the fighting top is seen in a battleship of Rameses III.
(about B.C. 1200), and it is found on ancient seals of the thirteenth
century of the present era, and so on, of course, through the Middle
Ages to our latest battleships.

From the times of the Egyptians the stern was always reserved for the
owner or captain and officers. This custom was that of the Greeks,
the Romans, the Vikings, and the English right down to the building
of H.M.S. _Dreadnought_ a short while ago, when the longstanding
practice of the officers being quartered aft and the men forward was
for the first time broken, to the satisfaction, I understand, of
neither officers nor men. There has always been a sense of reverence
on the part of the sailor for the poop-deck, and though in the
Merchant Service many of the old ways have recently disappeared,
yet the custom in the Navy, of “saluting the deck” in honour of the
Sovereign is, of course, well known. In ancient illustrations we see
the place of honour always placed aft.

Finally we must needs refer to the extraordinary longevity of the
Mediterranean galley. Adapted from the Egyptians by the Greeks and
afterwards the Romans, it flourished, especially in the Adriatic,
up to the sixteenth century in a modified form, and only the advent
of steam finally closed its career. Even now the gondola will be
recognised as bearing a family likeness, and the prow of the latter
still shows the survival of the spear-heads which were used in the
manœuvre of ramming.

These, then, are some of the characteristics that have been
persistent during the course of development of the sailing ship.
Each national design and each nation’s rig are the survival of all
that has been found to be the best for that particular locality. The
more ships a nation builds, the more they sail to other ports—seeing
other kinds of ships, comparing them with their own, and adopting
whatever is worth while—so much the faster does the ship improve.
This, indeed, has been the custom throughout the history of the
English nation. When she sent her ships to the Mediterranean at the
time of the Crusades, her sailors returned home with new ideas.
Thus, the ships in which Richard, with his large fleet, voyaged to
Palestine in 1190 would be still of the Viking type. Only a hundred
and thirty years had elapsed since William the Conqueror landed in
similar boats, as we know from the Bayeux tapestry. When Richard was
in the Mediterranean he was joined by a number of galleys. It is not
assuming too much to say that an exchange of visits would be made
between the crews of the respective ships. The difference in ships
would most certainly be criticised, for of all people who inhabit
this planet, none are more critical of each other’s possessions than
sailormen. The Mediterranean inhabitants, having reached civilisation
earlier than the dwellers of Northern Europe, and having had the
advantage of living nearer, both historically and geographically,
to the first builders of ships, would no doubt have been far in
advance of the shipbuilders of Northern Europe. Therefore, it is
fairly certain that the English returned from the Crusades knowing
far more of maritime matters than when they had set out. At any
rate, it is significant that the illustrations of ships of the date
of 1238, or about fifty years after Richard set forth to the East,
show the Viking-like ship greatly modified. The beginnings of the
stern-castle and fore-castle and of fighting top are now seen. It
seems to me highly probable that the idea for these was obtained from
the galleys, still influenced in their architecture by the methods of
fighting adopted by the Greeks and the Romans.

The English nation, more than perhaps any other, has been
characterised not so much by her inventiveness as by her skill in
adapting other nations’ ideas. The present age of electricity and
other inventions illustrates the general truth of this statement.
Thus, her ships of to-day are the result of continually improving
on the designs of other nations. From Norway she got her first
sailing ships; from the Mediterranean she assuredly derived
considerable knowledge in maritime matters generally. Certainly
from Spain she learned much of the art of navigation, of rigging
and of shipbuilding. From the French, as we go down through time,
she acquired a vast increase of her knowledge of ship-designing
and shipbuilding. Not the least of this was the importance to a
vessel of fine lines. The Dutch taught us a good deal of seamanship
and tactics, as we know from Pepys’s Diary. Finally, about the
year 1850, after the American clippers had raced all our big ships
of the mercantile marine off the ocean, England learned to build
clippers equally fast and superior in strength, and so regained the
sea-carrying trade she had lost. In yacht designing also she has
learned much from American architects, as the Germans within the last
few years have learned from us.

Sailing ships are the links which bind country to country, continent
to continent. They have been at once the means of spreading
civilisation and war. It is a fact that the number of new ships to be
built increases proportionately as the trade of a country prospers,
and one of the first signs of bad trade is the decrease in the
shipbuilder’s orders. But, good trade or bad trade, peace or war,
there will always be a summons in the sea which cannot be resisted.
It summoned the Egyptians to sail to the land of Punt to fetch
incense and gold. It summoned the Phœnicians across the Bay of Biscay
to the tin mines of Cornwall. It called the Vikings to coast along
the Baltic shores for pillage and piracy. It called the Elizabethans
to set forth from Bristol and London in order to find new trade
routes, new markets for their goods, fresh sources of their imports.
It calls some for trade, some for piracy, some for mere adventure,
as in the case of the yachtsman of to-day. It seduces ships from the
safety of snug harbours only to be tossed about by the billows of a
trackless expanse. The sea ever has been, ever is, and ever will be,
uncertain, fickle, unkind. In spite of the fact that for 8000 years
and more shipbuilders, designers, and seamen have by experience and
invention sought every possible means to overcome its terrors and
to tame its fury; in spite of the fact that these men have never
succeeded in getting the upper hand, yet the call of the sea will
ever be obeyed. When once she has fascinated you, when once you have
consented to her cry and got the salt into your veins, you become as
much the slave of the sea as any Roman underling that pulled at the
oar of an ancient galley. The sea calls you; you hoist up your sails,
and come.




CHAPTER II.

EARLY EGYPTIAN SHIPS FROM ABOUT 6000 B.C.


The earliest information that we can find about the sailing ship
comes, of course, from Egypt: for although the first signs of the
dawn of culture were seen in Babylonia, yet that is an inland country
and not a maritime region. Notwithstanding the fact that to the
east of the Syro-Arabian desert there flow the navigable rivers of
the Tigris and Euphrates, and granting that it is only reasonable
to suppose that the earliest inhabitants on the banks of these
important streams did actually engage in the building of some sort
of boat or ship, yet we are not in a position to make any statement
from definite evidence. The age of the Babylonian civilisation is
exceedingly remote, and long prior to that of the Egyptians, but
that is the most that we can say. What their rowing or sailing craft
were like—who knows? The discoveries made in this, the most historic
corner of the world, by Layard and his successors have told us
something about the craft that breasted the waters of the Tigris, but
this information belongs to no period earlier than 700 or 900 B.C.
Whether subsequent discoveries may lift up the curtain that hides
from our view the remains, or at least the crude designs, of the
first objects that were ever propelled by wood or sail is entirely a
matter of uncertainty.

Of one thing we may rest assured—that Babylonia was in a
comparatively high state of civilisation about six thousand years
before the Christian era. For at about this date from the East came
Babylonian settlers, who found their way towards the setting sun
and, finally halting to the North-West of the Red Sea, colonised the
region on either side of the Nile. Here, then, they arrived from
Babylonia, not a barbarian wild tribe, but, as we know from the most
learned Egyptologists, a highly civilised people, possessing great
ability in certain arts and of definite intellectual development. It
would be only natural that a band of emigrants that had been living
by the banks of the Tigris or Euphrates should eventually settle
by a river. An Englishman who has lived all his life on the lower
reaches of the Thames, is far more likely to fix his habitation on
the shores of a colonial river than to trek inland and ultimately
“bring up” in the middle of a grazing country. The new inhabitants
of the land that we know by the name of Egypt would feel themselves
at home by its river. Whatever knowledge they had possessed of
boat-building in Babylonia they carried with them across the Arabian
desert and put into practice along the banks of the Nile. The
accompanying illustration (Fig. 3) will show to what ability these
colonisers or their immediate successors had attained. Here will be
noticed the earliest form of sailing ship in existence. The mast,
the square sail, the high bow and the curve of the hull are to us of
the highest possible interest as showing the first beginnings of the
modern full-rigged ship or yacht. This illustration has been taken
from an amphora found in Upper Egypt and now in the British Museum.
The date ascribed to it by the ablest Egyptologists is that of the
Pre-Dynastic period, which for the sake of clearness we may regard as
about 6000 B.C.

[Illustration: FIG. 3. EGYPTIAN SHIP OF ABOUT 6000 B.C.]

On other vases of this period, some of which may also be seen in the
British Museum, are to be found curious crescent-shaped designs
that have been sometimes taken for primitive ships by previous
writers. Even to the most imaginative it must have been difficult to
have given these curious drawings the right to be called boats. The
extraordinary erections on what would be the deck, have not any right
to be called masts or sails. To any one with the slightest practical
knowledge of boats and their ways, it is amusing to find that even
these primitive ideas should have been thought to depict any kind of
river craft. But I have been enabled to discuss this matter with such
eminent Egyptologists as Dr. Wallis Budge, the Keeper of the Egyptian
and Assyrian Antiquities in the British Museum, and Mr. H. R. Hall,
both of whom are of the opinion that these designs do not represent
ships at all. Dr. Budge suggests that they represent “zarebas,” a
word that became very familiar to English people during Kitchener’s
campaign in Egypt. In that case, the structures that have been
mistaken for masts would represent erections to frighten away enemies
or wild beasts. Another theory is that the series of straight lines
below what was taken for the ship’s hull, and which were wrongly
supposed to represent waves, are perhaps the piles on which the
dwelling is built. I have, therefore, omitted such designs as not
bearing on the subject of sailing ships.

Starting with a definite illustration before us of a sailing boat
of about 8000 years ago, our mind naturally wanders back to the
period when the first boat was ever made. Picture, if you will, the
prehistoric man standing by the banks of the Tigris or Euphrates
gazing in utter helplessness and awe at the liquid mass gurgling on
its way to the Persian Gulf. He sees the fishes able to swim beneath
its surface and the waterfowl to float above. Then when his mind has
reached a sufficiently developed state to permit of his being able to
reason, he begins to wonder if he—the superior to fish and fowl—could
also be supported in the water until he has reached the other side
of the river on which he has as yet never set foot. So, on a day,
greatly daring, he entrusts his body to the flowing stream, and at
length discovers that by certain exercises he is able to float and
swim across to the other side. A new accomplishment has been made,
a new world has been opened out to him. When he gets back home he
begins to reason still further. How can he carry himself, his family,
his goods to the other side? One day, perhaps, while hewing down a
tree for his hut, a branch falls into the water. Behold! it possesses
the ability of the water-fowl—it floats. So he hews down the trunk
itself, sits across it, and for sport, launches off from the bank.
Lo! the trunk supports both its own weight and his.

Thus encouraged, his primitive mind sets slowly to work. “If I get a
bigger trunk and hollow it out, it will carry me, my family and my
property across to the other shore.” So having turned the trunk into
a boat, he makes of the branch a punting-pole. At a later stage he
puts on a cross-piece to one end of the pole and thus propels himself
by paddling, until this in turn becomes an oar.

Since human nature differs but little from age to age, and its chief
tendency is ever to proceed along the route of least resistance, he
begins to seek some means of motion without work. His descendants
improve upon the tree-trunk until it has become more shapely and
less clumsy. Then while returning home one evening, tired out with
paddling and hunting, he rests on his paddle for a moment! Yet still
his boat moves. He holds up the blade of his paddle and the canoe
moves a little faster. He stands up, and, the larger the space that
is exposed to the wind blowing in the direction in which he is
travelling, the more quickly still does the little ship run on. Next
day he brings with him a stick which he erects in the boat. That will
save him standing. To the stick he makes fast a hide and spreading it
to the wind sails faster than anything he has ever seen float on the
water.

This is all very well in following winds: he can get along, too,
when the wind is abeam, although he has to keep helping her with
his paddle—such a lot of lee-way does she make; but every time the
breeze gets ahead as he winds round the reaches of the Tigris he has
to lower the sail and mast. This is too much for him. His mind is
not able to conceive of such a manœuvre of tacking: how could a boat
possibly go against the wind? It is unthinkable. He would be a fool
to try and reason otherwise against a law of nature. Not, indeed,
until thousands of years after him is tacking invented. The Egyptians
at any rate did not understand it. Their ships were built for sailing
up and rowing down the Nile, and there is abundant evidence to show
the mast lowered down on to the top of the after cabin and the
oarsmen propelling the boat with the stream.

The prehistoric man has thus made almost the same kind of boat that
the savage or half-civilised race makes to-day. The American Indian,
the Negro and the undeveloped Asiatic races cannot create any boat
superior to the dug-out, because their lack of intelligence is a
fatal barrier. But just as the first inventors of flying machines
have begun by studying the action of birds on the wing, so in
navigation as in aviation. The early boatbuilders who followed the
rough dug-out gave a shape to their ships that was derived from the
creatures of the water. If the reader will look at the “bows” and
underbody of a fish he will see how the general lines of the ship
began. If, too, he will look at the stern and “counter” of the duck
and swan he will easily notice the resemblance to the overhang of
the early Egyptian boats. This is not so fanciful as may appear at
first sight. The ancients certainly were affected by the waterfowl
in their designing of ships, and the graceful neck of the swan was a
regular decoration for the stern of the later Roman ships. It is but
common-sense that when man is about to study the method of navigating
water or air, he should begin by copying from the creatures that
spend their whole time in this activity.

For the development of the art of shipbuilding, few countries could
be found as suitable as Egypt. Surrounded on the East by the Red
Sea, and by the Mediterranean on the North, it had the additional
blessing of a long navigable river running through its midst. Of
inestimable value to any country as this is, the equable and dry
climate of Egypt, the peacefulness of the waters of the Nile, the
absence of storms and the rarity of calms combined with the fact
that, at any rate, during the whiter and early spring months, the
gentle north wind blew up the river with the regularity of a trade
wind, so enabling the ships to sail against the stream without the
aid of oars—these were just the conditions that many another nation
might have longed for. Very different, indeed, were the circumstances
which had to be wrestled with in the case of the first shipbuilders
and sailormen of Northern Europe. It is but natural, therefore, that
the Egyptians became great sailors and builders: we should have been
surprised had the reverse been the case.

In earlier times our sources of Egyptian history were limited
almost entirely to what could be derived from ancient Greek and
Roman writers. Nor was this of anything but a vague and unreliable
character. Happily within our own time this has been supplemented,
to an enormous degree, by Egyptian exploration. The first beginnings
of this are found in the scientific study of Egyptian monuments,
which began about the middle of the nineteenth century. The
foundation for the interpretation of hieroglyphic inscriptions was
laid in the Rosetta Stone, now fortunately in the British Museum.
Discovered at the close of the eighteenth century, its bilingual
writing in Egyptian and Greek paved the way for future scholars.
Englishmen, German, French and American students have since engaged
in the fascinating pursuit of systematically and with scrupulous
care, excavating the temples and palaces of the older civilisation
that lived on the banks of the Nile thousands of years before the
Incarnation. Encouraged alike by the settled state of political
affairs in Egypt, and by the support granted in the interests of
research by the Egyptian and European Governments, the excavation and
preservation of these unique monuments have gone steadily on from
year to year. It is from the annual reports of these exploration
societies, as well as from the explorers themselves, that we are able
to present the details of the Egyptian sailing ships.

It would have been strange if a nation with such a vast waterway, and
living in such close proximity to the Mediterranean and Red Seas,
should not have left behind some memorials of her shipping. Happily
we have no need for disappointment, for the information surviving to
us is of two kinds. Firstly, we have the wall-pictures of the ancient
buildings, which show almost everything that a picture could tell
of a ship and her rigging. These wonderful illustrations have been
faithfully copied on the spot. But besides these, within recent years
have been unearthed most interesting little wooden model boats. These
are of two kinds, those made in the form of a funeral bark, and those
which are models of the actual ships that sailed up the Nile at the
time they were made. In the former the dead man is seen lying under
a canopy or open deck-house with or without rowers. These funeral
barks, not being sailing boats, are only of interest in pursuing our
present subject as showing us the general lines and shape of the
hull, together with the steering and rowing arrangements.

It is the models of sailing ships that demand our attention. These
were placed in the tombs with the intention of providing the deceased
with the means of sailing about on the streams of the underworld.
Very touching is the care of the ancients that man’s most beautiful
creation—his ship—should not be separated from him even in death. (We
shall see, later on, a similar devotion expressed in the burial of
the Vikings.) Models of houses and of granaries, with curious little
men working away, so that the departed should not be lacking for
food while he sailed about the underworld, are also found. Some of
these models of ships, granaries and soul-houses are to be seen in
the British Museum and the South Kensington Collection. The reader
who is interested in the subject will find additional information in
the fascinating book by Professor Flinders Petrie.[1] Each boat was
provided with masts and sails and elaborately decorated steering
oars. Dr. Budge, in his guide to the Third and Fourth Egyptian Rooms
of the British Museum, points out that another religious idea was
connected with these boats, namely, the conception of the boat of
the Sun-god, called the “Boat of the Million of Years,” in which the
souls of the beatified were believed to travel nightly in the train
of the Sun-god as he passed through the underworld from West to East.

The Egyptians thought that by a use of words of magical power, the
models placed in the tombs, whether of boats or houses or granaries,
could be transformed into ghostly representations of their originals
on earth. “The boat,” adds Dr. Budge, “was considered to be such a
necessary adjunct to the comfort of the deceased in the next world,
that special chapters of the Book of the Dead were compiled for the
purpose of supplying him with the words of power necessary to enable
him to obtain it. Thus, ‘Tell us our name,’ say the oar-rests: and
the deceased answers, ‘Pillars of the Underworld is your name.’ ‘Tell
me my name,’ saith the Hold: ‘Aker’ is thy name. ‘Tell me my name,’
saith the Sail: ‘Nut,’ (_i.e._, heaven) is thy name,” &c.[2]

But let us make a survey of the development of the Egyptian ship from
the time prior to the Dynasties until the third or fourth century
before the Christian era. Ancient Egyptian history has been divided
by scholars into three periods—the Old Kingdom, the Intermediate, and
the New Kingdom. These again have been subdivided into Dynasties,
of which the First to the Tenth are covered by the Old Kingdom, the
Eleventh to the Seventeenth, by the Intermediate, and the Eighteenth
to the Twentieth, by the New Kingdom. Afterwards the various
Foreign Dynasties of Mercenaries formed the Twenty-second to the
Twenty-fifth. The Twenty-sixth was the time of the Restoration,
the Twenty-seventh to the Thirty-first represented the time of the
Persians. This will assist us in following the changes that came
about in the ships with the progress of time.

We have already drawn attention to the illustration of a ship, or
rather sailing boat, in Fig. 3, belonging to that remote period
anterior to the Dynasties. There can be no possible doubt as to her
being intended by the artist, who painted this design on the amphora,
for a sailing vessel of some kind, though the mast and square-sail
are set much further forward than is found later in Egyptian ships.
There is a figurehead on the extreme point of the stempost. Below is
a small platform, possibly for the look-out man whom we see later in
Egyptian ships armed with a pole for taking soundings. Right aft is
a small cabin for the owner or distinguished traveller. Probably she
was a decked ship and steered by one or more oars from the quarter.
The reader will notice a great similarity between the stern of this
vessel and that of the Bœotian sailing boat shown in Fig. 11.

From the earliest times up to about the year 3000 B.C., the Egyptian
craft are less ships than boats. The sailing boats of the third
dynasty are decked and fitted with a lowering mast, which when not
in use is lifted bodily out of its sockets and rests on the roof
of the after cabin. The boat was then propelled by paddles, with a
look-out man forward, the steersmen aft, and the commander amidships
armed with a thong-stick to urge the rowers on. The sailing boats
of the fourth and fifth dynasties become gradually bigger and more
seaworthy, but the mast and rigging show only slight advance. The
former, from the third dynasty to the eleventh, is in the shape of
the letter A. It fits into grooves either in the deck or the side of
the ship, and at first has no backstays or shrouds. Being a double
mast these are not necessary. The sail at this period is deep and
narrow, reaching from the top of the mast down to the deck, being
fitted with both yard and boom. Braces are attached to the ends
of the yards but no sheets are shown. During the fourth and fifth
dynasties, while the A-shaped mast remains, backstays are added,
sometimes numbering as many as nine or ten (see Fig. 4). These would
become essential as the ship grew larger and her gear heavier. These
backstays lead from roughly three-quarters of the way up the mast
down to the spot about a quarter of the ship’s length forward of the
stern. An additional stay from the top of the mast to the extremity
of the stern is also frequently shown. Two or three men are seen
steering with paddles, standing on the overhanging counter. On big
ships the steersmen number as many as five, and the paddlers with
their faces turned in the direction in which the ship was proceeding
are shown to be twenty-two or twenty-three on each side. The fact
that only one man is shown sitting aft holding a brace in each hand,
must be an additional proof of the gentleness of the northerly wind
on the Nile and the absence of squalls. No cleats are shown, and in
anything much above a zephyr his weight and strength must have been
sorely tried. The forestay, the enormous overhang both at bow and
stern, the look-out man forward with his pole for taking soundings
of the Nile, and possibly for tilting the ship’s head off whenever
she got aground—an experience that is far from rare on the Nile even
to-day—the presence of the commander with his thong-stick, are still
shown in the ships of the fourth and fifth dynasties.

[Illustration: FIG. 4. EGYPTIAN SHIP OF THE FIFTH DYNASTY.]

As showing the wonderful influence which Egyptian ships of this
period exercised on the rig of the Far East, and even of the Far
North-East, let me be permitted to call attention to the Burmese Junk
in Fig. 1. I will ask the reader to note very carefully her A-shaped
mast, her squaresail, her steering paddle at the side, and most
important of all the general sweep of the lines of her hull, coming
right up from the overhanging bow to the raised overhanging poop.
This is the Burmese junk of to-day, which, like the Egyptian ships
of old, finds the prevailing wind favourable for sailing up against
the river Irawadi, and when returning down the stream, lowers her
sail and rows down with the current. Between the Chinese and Burmese
junks of to-day and the Egyptian ships of about six thousand years
ago there are so many points of similarity that we are not surprised
when we remember that the Chinese, like the Egyptians, derived their
earliest culture from Babylonia, and that India—using the name in
its widest geographical sense to include Burma—is mainly, as to its
culture at least, an offshoot from the Chinese. Until quite recently,
China remained in the same state of development for four thousand
years. If that was so with her arts and life generally, it has been
especially so in the case of her sailing craft. I am not contending
that the Chinese junk is identical with the ancient Egyptian ship,
but I submit that between the two there is such close similarity as
to show a common influence and a remarkable persistence in type.

But whilst engaged in this present work, I became interested in a
half-civilised tribe called the Koryak, dwelling around the sea of
Okhotsk, in the North-West Pacific. Here, in this remote corner of
undeveloped Siberia, they have remained practically forgotten by
the rest of the world, except for a few occasional visits from the
land side by the Cossacks, and from the shore side by the American
whalers. Recently, thanks to the Russians, a few have begun to
embrace Christianity, but for the most part, they remain in their
primitive state with habits too repulsive to mention. Naturally,
since (as we have already pointed out) a nation exhibits its state
of progress in its art, its literature and its ships, we are not
surprised to find that the Koryak craft have, at any rate in respect
of rigging, several highly important similarities to the Egyptian
ship of the fourth and fifth dynasties. Thus, besides copying the
ancients in steering with an oar, the fore-end of the prow of their
sailing boats terminates in a fork through which the harpoon-line is
passed, this fork being sometimes carved with a human face which they
believe will serve as a protector of the boat. Instead of rowlocks
they have, like the early Egyptians, thong-loops, through which the
oar or paddle is inserted. Their sail, too, is a rectangular shape of
dressed, reindeer skins sewed together. But it is their mast that is
especially like the Egyptians and Burmese. The following description,
written by a member of the Jesup Expedition which recently visited
the Koryaks, is notable:

“Instead of a mast, they employ a more primitive contrivance. Three
long poles are tied together at one end with a thong which passes
through drill-holes, and are set up in the manner of a tripod. On one
side, the whole length of the sail is sewed to a yard, the middle of
which is slung from the top of the tripod by means of a stout thong.
The tripod is set up in the middle of the boat by tying both ends of
one of the poles to the ribs on one side of the boat, while the third
pole is fastened on the other side of the boat. The sail can revolve
around the top of the tripod, and is set in the direction required
by the wind, by means of braces and sheets made of thong, which are
fastened to the rails.”[3]

Lacking the civilisation of the ancient Egyptians, wanting, too, no
doubt the wood wherewith to build their boats, the Koryaks’ sailing
craft are made of seal skins. But there can be little doubt that
their rigging is of European rather than of Asiatic origin. Possibly
it came from Egypt to India and China and so further north to the
Sea of Okhotsk. At any rate, although the Egyptian ships we have
been considering had a double and not a treble mast, yet it must not
be supposed that the latter did not exist, for Mr. Villiers Stuart,
some years ago, found on the walls of a tomb belonging to the Sixth
Dynasty at Gebel Abu Faida, the painting of a boat with a treble mast
made of three spars arranged like the edges of a triangular pyramid.

After about the period of the fifth Dynasty the sail, instead of
being deep and narrow, becomes wide and shallow. Instead of the
several steersmen with their paddles at the stern, we have one large
oar in the centre of the stern, resting on a large wooden fork and
worked by one steersman by means of a lanyard. If the reader will
refer to Figs. 5 and 6, he will see this quite clearly. These are
the interesting little models already alluded to as having been
discovered by Professor Flinders Petrie, and which are now in the
Manchester Museum. This most instructive “find” was made by the
British School of Archæology in the season of 1906-7 at Rifeh,
whilst excavating the tomb of the sons of an Egyptian Prince
belonging to the Twelfth Dynasty. In the coffins were these two
excellent little ships, the one, as will be seen, with her mast
and yards, braces, topping lifts and halyards for sailing up the
Nile; while the other ship shews very clearly the mast lowered in a
tabernacle on to the cabin, the foot of the mast being balanced by
the weight of a stone—exactly the practice of the Norfolk wherries
of to-day, saving that instead of stone lead is used. The steersmen
will be noticed and the highly decorated blade of the steering oar.
Unfortunately, before being photographed, the oar in Fig. 5 has
been placed too high. It should, of course, have been dropped lower
beneath the water-line. Notice, too, that the rowers sit now with
their backs to the bow. Paddles have been dispensed with, and finding
that so much more power could be obtained by putting the whole weight
on to the oar, rowing has been taken to instead of paddling. The
little figure with a cloak round his shoulders in the bows (Fig. 6),
is the look-out man.

[Illustration: FIG. 5. MODEL OF AN EGYPTIAN SHIP OF THE TWELFTH
DYNASTY.]

[Illustration: FIG. 6. MODEL OF AN EGYPTIAN SHIP OF THE TWELFTH
DYNASTY.]

In Fig. 5, the look-out man with his pole is also seen forward; the
crew are gathered round the mast to haul at the halyards, and get in
the sheets and braces; for now that the sail does not reach right
down to the deck, sheets have become indispensable. It will also
be remarked that the boom has been introduced to make the sail set
better. The amount of sheer given to the boat is enormous, although
the curve-in of the top of the stern is exceedingly attractive.
Assuming that the dimensions of the model are proportionate she
must have had precious little grip of the water, and if, when on an
expedition to the land of Punt, the Egyptians ever encountered a beam
wind, their ships must have made a terrible lot of lee-way. For even
a light breeze, coming at right angles to those overhanging bows with
no great draught amidships, would drive her head right off the wind.
The steersman would naturally stand to leeward, to get a pull on his
steering-thong or lanyard in order to luff her up, and prevent
her sagging too much to leeward. At a later date, when, as we shall
see, an oar was used each side for steering in place of only one at
the extreme stern, the helmsman stood on the lee side and worked the
lee steering oar. By reason of its size, this would have some of the
effects of the leeboards on a Thames Barge or Dutchman.

Although these two models are the finest tomb group that have
yet reached England, yet others have been found at Sakkara, and
elsewhere, sometimes with a hull painted yellow and a cabin with
an awning painted to imitate leather, in which the proprietor,
more carefully made and of better wood than his sailors, sat with
his box by his side. Another boat model was of light papyrus with
flower-shaped prow and stern. It was painted green, and carried a
light shelter under which the owner usually stood.[4]

These ships of the Twelfth Dynasty have an additional interest for
us, since they belong to the time when Egypt was enjoying the fullest
prosperity, and had reached its highest degree of civilisation in its
capital of Thebes. But it is in the illustrations of ships afforded
by excavations in connection with the Temple of Deir-el-Bahari that
we find the most detailed information. The south wall of the middle
terrace of this building is most informative, depicting as it does
the naval expedition to the land of Punt. In Egyptian history various
expeditions are mentioned to Punt. One occurred as early as the fifth
Dynasty, for it is recorded in a tomb of a dynasty later. During the
eleventh Dynasty, a similar expedition was made under Sankh-kara, and
Ramases III. also sent an expedition. These last two voyages are said
to have started from a harbour on the Red Sea which was reached from
Koptos, probably the modern Kosseir, and to have returned there.

Although it is now thought by some Egyptologists that Queen
Hatshopsitu did not send an expedition to Punt, but that she was only
copying the expedition of the eleventh Dynasty, and that these Punt
reliefs are merely replicas of other reliefs still to be discovered
in the older temple, depicting an expedition under Nebkheruna, yet it
is a doubtful point and by no means settled by critics.

But supposing these are the ships of the Egyptian Queen of the
eighteenth Dynasty, they are seen with fifteen oarsmen a side,
whilst two look-out men are standing forward in a kind of open-work
forecastle. The general shape of the ship by now has become
considerably modified. Whilst there is still considerable overhang
both at bow and stern, yet she is long on the waterline. The bow
resembles nothing so much as that of a modern gondola. There is a
beautiful line sweeping up aft to a raised poop with an ornamentation
curving gracefully inboard to another open-work castle or cabin.
These illustrations of the eighteenth Dynasty show how thoroughly
the Egyptians had mastered the art of shipbuilding. When a ship is
sailing on the sea, she is thrown up by the motion of the waters till
she rests pivoted on the crest of a wave. The middle of the ship is
thus supported, but the bow and stern, not being waterborne, have a
tendency to droop while the centre of the ship tends to bulge up.
This is technically known among naval architects as “hogging.” In the
case of ships with an enormous overhang, unsupported by water, such
as was the case of the Egyptian ships and is now the fashion with our
modern yachts, this hogging would need to be guarded against. Only
recently the writer saw on the south coast a modern yacht with no
beam but considerable length and overhang. She had been badly built
and the “hogging” was very noticeable a little forward of amidships.
Her skipper gave her a very bad name altogether.

In the Hatshopsitu ships we see the “hogging” strain guarded against
by a powerful truss of thick rope. This truss leads from forward,
sometimes being bound round—undergirding—the prow: sometimes it is
made fast inside, perhaps to the deck or to the floors. It then leads
aft, being stretched on forked posts until it reaches the mast,
where it is wound round in a sort of clove-hitch, and then continues
aft again being stretched on other forked posts until it is finally
girded round the counter. This truss was as large as a man’s waist,
and has been calculated by Commander T. M. Barber of the United
States’ Navy to have been able to withstand a strain of over 300
tons.[5]

The manner of steering from the centre of the stern with one oar has
given way to that of using an oar on each quarter. Each oar rests
on a forked post rising above the head of the steersman who works
the oar with a thong loop. As already pointed out, it is noticeable
that he uses the lee steering oar always. It is probable that going
to the land of Punt, the prevailing North wind favoured them. But
returning, if the wind was foul, they would have to row. Even had
they understood the art of tacking at this time they would have had
some difficulty. As far as one can gather from the look of a ship of
this kind, as soon as ever the lee oar was pushed over so that she
came up into the wind, she would get into stays and not pay off on to
the other tack except with the aid of the oarsmen.

In these Punt pictures, too, will be noticed the fact that the rowers
have their oars in thongs instead of the later invention—pins or
rowlocks. These ships were certainly decked, but that was probably
only down the centre, for though we see the ship crowded with all
sorts of merchandise, yet the rowers’ bodies are only visible from
the knees upwards. They were probably placed on a lower platform.

Just as in the course of time the double and treble mast gave way
to the single spar, and the deep, narrow sail to the broad, shallow
square-sail, so later, about the year 1250 B.C., we find that the
boom was discarded, and therefore at any rate, by now, sheets must
have been introduced. But before we pass from Hatshopsitu’s ships
(about 1600 B.C.) let us examine the sail of that time. So much
confusion exists in the mind of many who see occasional pictures of
these early vessels that it may be well to make an effort to clear
this matter up. The yard was of two pieces lashed together in the
middle; the same statement applies to the boom. Pulleys not being
yet invented, the two halyards that raised the yard, led through two
empty squares formed by a framework of wood acting as fair-leads.
These halyards led aft, and being belayed well abaft the mast were
used as powerful stays to the latter. Let it be understood at once
that the boom remained fixed, being lashed to the mast by thongs.
From the top of the mast below the yard depended a series of topping
lifts about seventeen in number. These coming out from the mast at
varying angles spread over the whole length of the boom, and took the
weight of the latter, supporting also the sail and yard when lowered.
Contrary to the subsequent practice of the Greeks and Romans, the
yard was the spar that was raised or lowered by the halyards. Thus,
when sail was struck the two halyards would be slacked off, the yard
would descend on to the boom, the sail would be rolled up while the
topping-lifts would hold the entire weight. The two braces, leading
down not quite from the extremities of the yard, a single sheet made
fast a little forward of the middle of the boom, a forestay and also
a single backstay were also used, but side rigging never.

From about the year 1250 B.C. onwards, the sail was no longer furled
by slacking away the halyards, but, having dispensed with the boom,
brails of about four in number usually hung from the yard which was
now not lowered but a fixture. Consequently on coming to an anchorage
the brails would be used for furling the sail to the yard—still
standing owing to the weight and consequent exertion needed to hoist
it again. This, then, remained the accepted rig of the Phœnicians,
Greeks and Romans for over a thousand years as we shall see from the
evidence of coins and vases.

The importance of the various expeditions of the Egyptians to Punt
cannot be over-estimated. They are the earliest attempt at organising
a fleet of powerful ships to voyage far away from home waters.
Exactly where Punt was situated it is not possible to say, because
the name was given to various regions at different times. Sometimes
it is the modern Somaliland, or the shore opposite: at other times
it is somewhere in a more southerly direction. But wherever Punt may
have been, it was either to the East or South of Egypt. The real
motive of these expeditions was to increase the commerce of Egypt,
to open up trade with the neighbouring countries, and especially to
obtain incense for the burials of the Egyptians. Such commodities as
ivory, leopard skins, ostrich feathers and gold were also brought
back.

I am indebted for much information with reference to these
expeditions to a most interesting publication of the Egypt
Exploration Fund,[6] and to the work of a German scholar.[7] In the
illustrations of the Punt expedition as depicted in Hatshopsitu’s
Temple, we see five ships arriving. Two have struck sail and are
moored. The first ship has sent out a small boat which is fastened
by ropes to a tree on the shore, while bags and amphora, probably
containing food and drink, are being unloaded to present to the
chief of Punt. The other three ships are coming up with sail set,
showing us the most interesting details as to their rigging. On one
of them the pilot is seen giving the command “To the port side.”
There is an inscription annexed to this illustration, which, as
stated above, can now be deciphered. It reads thus:—“These are the
ships, which the wind brought along with it.” And again, “The voyage
on the sea, the attainment of the longed-for aim in the holy land,
the happy arrival of the Egyptian soldiers in the land of Punt,
according to the arrangement of the divine Prince Amon, Lord of the
terrestrial thrones in Thebes, in order to bring to him the treasures
of the whole land in such quantities as will satisfy him.”

We see, too, the ships being loaded with the produce of Punt. The
Egyptians are bringing the cargo across a gangway from the shore
to the ship. There are bags of incense and gold, ebony, tusks
of elephants, skins of panthers, frankincense trees piled up in
confusion on the ships’ decks. Monkeys, too, have been obtained,
which have been truthfully depicted as amusing themselves by walking
along the truss. Any one who has ever taken a monkey on board a
sailing ship knows that the first thing he does is to run up the
rigging. It is a small point this, but it shows that the artist was
anxious to be truthful and exact in his details.

The hieroglyphic inscription accompanying this illustration is
virtually the bill of lading. It gives a detailed and accurate
account of all the articles destined for transport. The translation
of this according to Dr. Duemichen is: “The loading of the ships
of transport with a great quantity of the magnificent products of
Arabia, with all kinds of precious woods of the holy land, with heaps
of incense-resin, with verdant incense trees, with ebony, with pure
ivory, with gold and silver from the land of Amu, with the (odorous)
Tepes wood and the Kassiarind, with Aham-incense and Mestemrouge,
with Anau-monkeys, Kop-monkeys, and Tesem-animals, with skins of
leopards of the South, with women and children. Never has a transport
(been made) like this one by any king since the creation of the
world.”

[Illustration: FIG. 7. EGYPTIAN SHIP (IN THE TEMPLE OF DEIR-EL-BAHARI).]

Finally (see Fig. 7) we are shown three vessels of the fleet
returning to Thebes richly laden. The accompanying inscription in
this case reads: “The excursion was completed satisfactorily; happy
arrival at Thebes to the joy of the Egyptian soldiers. The (Arabian
and Ethiopian) princes, after they had arrived in this country, bring
with them costly things of the land of Arabia, such as had never yet
been brought that could be compared with what they brought, by any of
the Egyptian kings, for the supreme majesty of this god Amon-Ra, Lord
of the terrestrial thrones.”

“If the expedition really landed at Thebes,” says Dr. Edouard
Naville, “we must suppose that at that time, long before Ramases II.,
who is said to have made a canal from the Nile to the Red Sea, there
was an arm of the Nile forming a communication with the sea, which
extended much farther north than it does now.”[8]

When we remember the splendour and gaiety of the court at Thebes, the
many gorgeous festivals that were held on the water, the Egyptians’
love of pleasure and their intense joy in living, we are neither
surprised to learn of the great fêtes that celebrated the safe return
of these voyagers, nor of the fact that a company of royal dancers
accompanied the ships to enliven the navigation with song and dance.
That the Egyptians dearly loved their ships and set them in high
honour cannot be disputed. Besides burying them in the tombs of
their rulers, there were times when sacred boats were carried out of
the temples on the occasion of high festivals and dragged along by
sledges.

Professor Maspero[9] believes that the navigation of the Red Sea by
the Egyptians was far more frequent than is usually imagined, and the
same kinds of vessels in which they coasted along the Mediterranean
from the mouth of the Nile to the southern coast of Syria, conveyed
them also, by following the coast of Africa, as far as the straits
of Bab-el-Mandeb. These ships were, of course, somewhat bigger and
more able than the Nile boats, though they were built on the same
model. They were clinker-built with narrow sharp stem and stern,
with enormous sheer rising from forward to the high stern. They were
not open boats but decked, and we find hieroglyphics denoting the
pilot’s orders “Pull the oar,” “To the port side.” Heavier, bigger,
with more freeboard and no hold, the Egyptian merchant ships, crowded
with their cargo and a complement of fifty sailors, pilots, and
passengers, barely afforded room for working the ship properly. The
length of ships of the size that went to Punt has been thought to be
about sixty-five feet, or much smaller than such modern yachts as
“Shamrock” and “Nyria.”

We have already mentioned the wonderful influence the rig of the
Egyptians exercised to the eastward, but though the old squaresail
rig has gone from Egypt, yet to-day we can still see very similar
boats and almost the same rig on the Orange Laut of the Malay West
Coast. The overhanging bow and stern, the great sheer from forward to
the high poop, the large single squaresail, now converted practically
into a lug-sail, are still there to keep alive the memory of the
ships of the Dynasties.

I have already referred in the previous chapter to the lateen sail
having been adapted from the Egyptian rig a few centuries before the
Christian era. But it is probable that between the squaresail rig
and the lateen there was just one intermediate stage. By tilting the
yard at a different angle to the mast, instead of it being at right
angles, so that the foot came down lower, and the peak of the sail
was pointed higher, it would be found that the ship would hold a
better wind. This is amply borne out by the Egyptian “Nugger” (see
Fig. 8), which is still in use on the Nile above the second cataract,
and is being replaced only very slowly by the lateen. There is a
relief on a sarcophagus found in the precincts of the Vatican, and
now in the Lateran Museum, which certainly resembles the “Nugger”
in its transition from the squaresail to the lateen. (The date of
this is about 200 A.D.). The only important difference is that
the Vatican relief shows a topsail added. Finally, discarding the
boom altogether, the lateen sail comes with the foot of the sail
lower still, and consequently the peak much higher, being but an
exaggerated form of our modern lug-sail so prevalent in sailing
dinghies. This remains, as we have pointed out above, as the
characteristic sail of the Mediterranean, the Nile and Red Sea.

[Illustration: FIG. 8. AN EGYPTIAN NUGGER.]

Before we close this chapter one must refer to the vexed question as
to when the ancients discovered that wonderful art of sailing against
the wind—tacking. In the absence of any definite knowledge, I hold
the opinion that this first came into practice on the Nile about
the time the nugger, or dhow was introduced as the rig for sailing
boats. My reasons for this supposition are: firstly, the squaresail
being more suitable for the open sea and making passages of some
length, it would be a country having a navigable river that would be
likely to discover such a rig as would enable them to sail with the
stream _against_ the prevailing northerly wind; secondly, arguing on
the theory (which has many adherents) that the dhow came in about
the time of the death of Alexander the Great who revolutionised
at least one corner of Egypt, leaving behind his name to the port
of Alexandria as an eternal memorial, I hold that the invention
of this dhow rig made the ship to come very close to the wind—far
closer than the old-fashioned squaresail of the earlier Egyptians.
Realising, when coming down with the stream, that they could go so
near to the wind when approaching the right bank, why—surely it must
have occurred to such highly developed minds—could they not do the
same when zigzagging across to the left shore? At first, no doubt,
they pulled her head round with their oars, until, perhaps, on one
occasion, she carried so much way from the last shore that she came
round of her own accord—shook herself for a moment, as she hung for a
short time in stays—and then paid off on the other tack. After that,
the whole art of going to windward was revealed. My third reason is
based on the fact that the Saxons, who settled around the mouth of
the Elbe and subjugated the Thuringians after the death of Alexander
the Great, did possess this knowledge of tacking.

Unless it were with the intention of tacking, it is difficult to
see why the dhow, or nugger rig should have prevailed. But we do
know that this form of sail was extant about the time of Alexander;
therefore, tacking must be at least as old as the death of Alexander
in the fourth century B.C. A squaresail-ship whether ancient or
modern will go no nearer the wind than seven points, whereas the
fore-and-after will sail as close as five. This, as soon as the fact
was fully realised on the Nile, would hasten that day when tacking
was first found out.

Egypt, after flourishing so mightily for so many hundreds of years,
had its decline not less than its rise. Just as the earlier Egyptian
sculptures are superior to the later ones in sincerity and fidelity,
becoming subsequently more stiff and formal, so her shipping
eventually deteriorated, and the mastery of the seas passed into the
hands of the Phœnicians.




CHAPTER III.

ANCIENT SHIPS OF PHŒNICIA, GREECE, AND ROME.[10]


It is almost impossible to exaggerate the potent influence exercised
by the Phœnicians, as successors of the Egyptians, in being the
maritime nation of the world. Happy in their origin by the Persian
Gulf, fortunate, too, in having had the Egyptians before them, and
so benefiting by the knowledge and experience of the latter, they
had developed and prospered through the centuries parallel with
the Dynastic peoples. Much that we should wish to know about the
Phœnicians is wanting, but we have more than adequate material for
the means of realising something of the range and intensity of their
sway.

Migrating, like the first Egyptians, westward, they had settled
around the Levant, to the north of Palestine. Already, in prehistoric
days, they had expanded still further westward into Greece,
founding Thebes in Bœotia, and teaching the barbarian inhabitants
of that country the elements of civilisation. Everywhere in the
ancient world, from remote ages until a century or two before the
Incarnation, Phœnician ships were as numerous in the waters of the
Mediterranean, as British vessels in all parts of the world are
to-day. Possessing a genius for trade, a keen love for the sea
and for travel, they had the complete mastery of the commerce and
fisheries of the Ægean Sea, until as late as the eighth century
B.C. They dragged up from the waters its shell fish to make purple
dies; they burrowed into the earth to extract silver; they opened
up commerce wherever it was possible, exchanging such products of
the East as woven fabrics and highly-wrought metal work. They built
factories on islands and promontories, and gave to the towns along
the coast-line—especially of the eastern side of Greece—Phœnician
names. Troubling but little about inland situations, they made their
strong settlements to be their island homes.

Although eventually the Phœnicians were driven out of the Ægean,
yet their effect on the inhabitants of Greece was a lasting one. As
Greece had received from the Phœnicians her first culture, so she
had adopted their religion and their species of ships. We shall see,
presently, how very similar the ships of the Greeks and Phœnicians
were. But before proceeding thus far, let us remember that, though
the Phœnicians were developing while the Egyptians were declining,
yet, indubitably, they owed a vast amount to the civilisation of
the latter. Why the Phœnicians, more than any other people, were
influenced by the Egyptians is not hard to understand if we realise
that they alone were allowed to trade to the mouths of the Nile. The
Egyptians guarded their kingdom inviolate against all other merchants
of the Mediterranean, although Achaian pirates from the North at
times swept down to the Nile Delta. Not until the Twenty-Sixth
Dynasty, when Egypt was reunited, and again made a strong kingdom,
were the Milesian and other Greek traders allowed to begin commercial
operations with the land of the Pharaohs.

Broadly speaking, the Phœnician ships were identical with those of
about the time of Ramases III. (1200 B.C.). The fixed yard, the
absence of boom, the brails suspending from the yard, the sweep
of the lines aft to the overhanging stern, the double steering
oar—these characteristics, which in the last chapter we left with
the Egyptians, are all seen in the ships of the Phœnicians. The
chief noticeable difference is that the latter have altered the bow
so that she has a ram. It was the Phœnicians, too, who invented the
bireme and trireme in order that speed might be obtained through
increasing the height without adding to the length of the ship. The
ships become somewhat larger than those of the Egyptians, for the
reason that they have to voyage much further afield. Consequently the
sail is sometimes found bigger, too, and instead of four brails, six
is the usual number seen. The Phœnician bireme had as many as eleven
or twelve rowers each side, sails being only used in a fair wind,
but never at all in battle. In addition to its crew of seamen, a
Phœnician trireme often carried thirty marines, sometimes of a nation
different from the Phœnicians.

Right to the end, even when decline had at last taken the place of
a rise, the Phœnicians remained good sailormen. Whenever a superior
foe overcame them, they were used by their new master with deadly
effect against his next enemy. We have an instance of this in the
fifth century B.C., when, Phœnicia and Cyprus having been defeated
by Cambyses, the latter utilised the strong Phœnician fleet against
Amasis, the Egyptian king. And again, in the following century,
when Xerxes had enforced the most rigorous conscription, and every
maritime people in his dominions had been compelled to put forth its
full strength, we find it recorded that the most trustworthy portion
of the fleet, far superior to the Egyptians, was composed of ships
of the Phœnician cities, the kings of Tyre and Sidon appearing in
person, each at the head of his own contingent. Other things being
equal, that side was usually victorious which had the Phœnicians with
them. For the Phœnicians had the instinct of sailormen; they knew how
to build and design their ships to withstand a fight; they had the
ships, they had the men, and, what was more important still, they
knew how to use both.

But the Phœnicians were more than mere traders or fighters: they
were the world’s greatest explorers—until the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries of our era. It was they who voyaged out of the
Mediterranean across the turbulent Bay of Biscay to Cornwall and
perhaps Ireland. I am of the firm opinion that they also continued
their travels further eastward across the North Sea: we will deal
with that, however, in the next chapter. At any rate about the
beginning of the sixth century B.C. they circumnavigated Africa,
obeying the orders of Neco, an Egyptian king, “who”—to continue in
Hakluyt’s Elizabethan English—“(for trial’s sake) sent a fleet of
Phœnicians downe the Red sea: who setting forth in the Autumne and
sailing Southward till they had the Sunne at noone-tide upon their
sterbourd (that is to say, having crossed the Æquinoctial and the
Southerne tropique) after a long Navigation, directed their course
to the North, and in the space of 3. yeeres environed all Africk,
passing home through the Gaditan streites, and arriving in Egypt.”[11]

It was the Phœnicians, too, who with the Israelites in the time of
Solomon sailed down the Red Sea to Eastern Africa, Persia, and
Beluchistan. Some, indeed, have thought that the Phœnicians sailed
out of the Mediterranean and keeping their course to the westward
were the first to discover America. Whether this is true or not is a
matter for dispute, but it is quite possible. I have seen a little
seven-ton cutter yacht that came across on her own bottom, and she
is not half the size of the old Phœnician ships. Nor had she a few
dozen galley slaves on board to pull at the oars: still less the room
wherein to stow them.[12] There is, then, nothing at all improbable
in the Phœnicians having gone so far afield. They were not pressed
for time, and could afford to wait till the weather suited them.
Given a fair wind they could not have had better shaped canvas for
the voyage than theirs. Every sailor will tell you that there is
nothing to beat the squaresail for ocean passages, and those who have
tried the fore-and-aft rig for deep-sea sailing have lived to wish
they had had a rectangular sail set across the mast, so as to avoid
the fear of gybing as in a fore-and-after. Lord Brassey, when, in
the famous race across the Atlantic in 1905, he commanded his own
yacht the _Sunbeam_, afterwards endorsed these opinions about the
respective merits of the square-sail and of the fore-and-aft rig.

Moreover, the Phœnicians had ample brails for reefing. True, the ship
would roll considerably with so shallow a keel, but her length would
be of some assistance, and no doubt the skipper would see to it that
the crew steadied her with their oars.

Either from the Egyptians or the Phœnicians—but almost certainly from
the latter—the people down the east coast of Africa learnt the art of
navigation pretty thoroughly, for we know from Hakluyt that when, at
the end of the fifteenth century of our era, Vasco da Gama doubled
the Cape of Good Hope and called at the East African ports, he found
that the arts of navigation were as well understood by the Eastern
seamen as by himself. This would seem to imply that these Africans
had years ago reached the state of advancement in sailing a ship
already possessed by the more civilised parts of the world.

Our evidence as to the actual shape and rig of the Phœnician craft
is of two kinds. Firstly, thanks to the discoveries of the late Sir
Austin Layard and his successors, we have one or two representations
of ships. One of these is a rowing boat pure and simple, very tubby,
and obviously never intended to be used with a sail. Secondly, we
have the evidence of coins of the towns of Phœnicia. I have been so
fortunate as to be able to reproduce two of the latter, both being of
Sidon.

With regard to the first class, these date back to a period of about
700 B.C. On a relief belonging to the Palace of Sennacherib found
near Nineveh, and now in the British Museum, and also on a relief of
the Palace of Khorsabad, built by King Sargon, there are depicted
ancient Phœnician ships. This latter is now in the Louvre. But these
reliefs do not tell us very much, though they are of assistance
if read in conjunction with the coins. The upper deck of the ship
from the Sennacherib Palace was reserved for the combatants while
fighting, and for persons of quality when making a passage. We see
the latter reclining in the sunshine, and the look-out man in the
bows. A mast with forestay, braces and sail furled to the yard, would
be also on the top deck, but these would be of no considerable size.
A row of shields ran round as a protection against the enemy’s darts,
and the stem ended in a powerful ram. At least seventeen oarsmen in
two banks on each side worked the ship, while a couple of steering
oars, after the manner of the Egyptians, kept her on her course. This
was a bireme for war purposes.

[Illustration: FIG. 9. PHŒNICIAN SHIP.

_From a coin of Sidon_, _c._ 450 B.C.]

But the ship depicted in the Palace of Khorsabad, while not showing
any sail, indicates very clearly a mast with stays leading fore and
aft to the bow (which ends in a horse’s head) and to the stern. The
shape of this craft, if it was anything like the Phœnician ships,
which came to Northern Europe, would certainly seem to prove that
the Phœnicians continued their voyage further east to Norway; for
here, with the high tapering stern and bow, and the decoration of the
latter, is what could very easily be taken for the early design of
the Viking ships. She is entirely different from the Egyptian type of
ship, though she has evidently been based on the latter.

Passing now to the two coins of Sidon, these are both probably of
about the year 450 B.C. Fig. 9 is from a coin in the British Museum.
It is a little indistinct, but the Egyptian stern is still seen,
though the ram, as already referred to, is at the bows. The double
steering oars are faintly visible, though the long line of shields,
which survived well into the middle ages, is clearly defined. The
curve of the keel-line is very beautiful, and she must have been very
fast, as indeed we know from historians similar shaped vessels in
Greece were. Although such a ship was of great length, yet by reason
of the curve of the keel, having the greatest depth amidships, and
because of the design of the stern, she would probably steer pretty
easily. This, of course, was essential in the naval manœuvres that
were undertaken in fights. As to the sails, if the reader has already
followed us in the previous chapter, these call for but little
explanation again. The yard is ordinarily kept fixed. The sails hang
apparently in two sections like so many curtains, being divided at
the mast. The same peculiarity is to be seen in the Irrawadi junks
referred to previously.

For shortening sail in a blow, or for stowing when coming to anchor,
the six brails seen depending from the yard would be wound round
the sail, once or twice, by sending a couple of men to the top of
the yard, the crew below throwing up the rope to be passed round
sail and yard. It was a clumsy method, but it sufficed. The reader
may remember that the Dutchmen have used this principle since the
sixteenth century, and the Thames barge of to-day still follows
the general idea. The only real difference is that in the Dutchman
and Thames barge, being fore-and-aft rigged, the brail comes
horizontally—at right angles to the mast—instead of vertically, and
parallel to the mast, whilst, of course, going aloft is unnecessary.
Even this Dutch brailing system was derived from that used by the
lateen-sails of the Mediterranean. (See the mizzen of the _Santa
Maria_, in Fig. 45.) In detail, too, there is a slight difference,
for the modern ships we are mentioning have a ring, or fair-lead, for
the brail to come through, one end being fastened to the sail, the
standing part passing through the ring on the leach of the sail and
so back to the mast.

What we have said regarding this illustration is applicable also to
Fig. 10. But happily this shows us some important details in the
stern. First, the staff with crescent-top denotes that she was the
admiral’s flagship. The curved-line immediately below represents part
of the structure called the _aphlaston_ (ἀ + Φλαζω = I crush). This
was placed as a protection for the ship against the terrible damage
that might be done by the enemy charging into her and ramming her.
A still better example of this detail will be noticed in Fig. 14.
One can easily trace this as having come from the Egyptian ships of
the eighteenth dynasty that went to Punt. Immediately below this, in
Fig. 10 again, and hanging down, may be either a protection against
the enemy or, as will be seen in the ship of Odysseus (Fig. 16), a
kind of decoration resembling some rich carpet, to ornament the stern
where the admiral was located in authority. This second Phœnician
illustration is from a coin in the Hunterian Collection, Glasgow.

[Illustration: FIG. 10. PHŒNICIAN SHIP.

_From a coin of Sidon_, _c._ 450 B.C.]

It has been said that some of the larger Phœnician ships were as long
as 300 feet, though this statement needs to be taken with caution. At
any rate, it is accurate to describe them as being long, straight,
narrow, and flat-bottomed, and as carrying sometimes as many as
fifty oarsmen. Although the crescent-shape had for so long a time
been almost a convention for the design of the ship, yet the nation
that could found so important and prosperous a colony as Carthage,
and that built ships both for Egyptians and Persians, would not be
likely to be held down too tightly by custom where their own clever
genius and invaluable practical experience taught them otherwise. By
completely modifying the bow as it had been customary in the Egyptian
ships, the Phœnicians started a new fashion in naval architecture
which, permeating through Greek and Roman history, is still found in
the galleys of the Adriatic as late as the eighteenth century of our
era. Those bows, with or without the ram, even on a Maltese sailing
galley, show their ancient Phœnician ancestry in an undeniable manner.

Our information regarding ancient Greek and Roman ships is derived
from the following sources: the writings of Homer, Herodotus,
Thucydides, Cicero, Cæsar, Tacitus, Xenophon, Lucian, Pliny, Livy,
Æschylus, Aristophanes, Euripides, Plutarch, Sophocles, and others;
the inventories of the Athenian arsenals of the fourth century B.C.;
ancient Greek vases; reliefs discovered in Southern Europe at various
periods; monuments and tombs; mosaics found in North Africa, ancient
coins; the Voyages of St. Paul; and finally ancient remains such as
fibulæ, terra-cotta models, and earthenware lamps.

From these diverse channels of information we find that the
Phœnicians who invented the bireme and the trireme, who had adopted
the Egyptian stern and rigging for their ships, handed these features
on to the Greeks, and they, in turn, to the Romans. The earliest
Greek ships were afloat in the thirteenth century B.C., and by about
the year 800 B.C. maritime matters had taken the greatest hold on
the dwellers in the Greek peninsula and the western coasts of Asia
Minor. The fierce race for wealth which to-day we see going on in
America had its precedent in the eighth century before the Christian
era in the north-eastern corner of the Mediterranean. Very quickly
the contestants found that the shortest route to affluence was _viâ_
the sea. Indeed, following the example of their first teachers,
the Phœnicians, so zealously did they keep to their ships that the
Milesian sea-traders formed a party in the State known as “the men
never off the water.” In the seventh century, if not earlier, the
Greeks were prosperously fishing in the Black Sea; and though the
dangers of rounding Mount Athos in the Ægean were in those days to
some extent analogous to the perils which a sailing ship to-day
suffers in doubling Cape Horn, yet in the fourth century B.C.,
Xerxes, rather than risk a series of shipwrecks to his fleet in the
stormy seas at the foot of this mountain, had the sandy isthmus
connecting the mainland pierced with a canal.

Greece lacked the advantage to be found in a Tigris, a Euphrates,
or Nile. Her rivers are so short, and their descent to the sea so
rapid, that navigation was utterly impossible. But for what she
missed in rivers she was amply compensated in respect of the peculiar
formation of the coast. Endowed with the same blessing that makes
the west coast of Scotland so attractive (but happily without the
drawback of the Atlantic immediately outside the lochs), Greece had
her delightful inlets and arms of the seas running far up into the
land. The peaceful waters of the Grecian archipelago, the mildness of
its climate, the absence of tides, the comparative smoothness of the
water—except for occasional squalls with a nasty short sea—these were
factors every bit as encouraging for the art of navigation as ever
the conditions that smiled on the Egyptians. In some respects they
were more stimulating in proportion as the sea makes a better sailor
than even the biggest river. Add to this that there was at hand an
ample supply of good wood and that the southern shores of the Euxine
were rich not merely in timber but in iron, copper and red-lead.
Could the shipbuilder’s paradise possibly be more complete?

There was just one drawback from which, as it seems to me, the
nations on the Mediterranean compared with the inhabitants of
Northern Europe have always suffered: even till to-day, or at
any rate up to the introduction of steam, the tendency of the
Mediterraneans has been to build sailing boats rather than sailing
ships. The very conditions that prompted naval architecture at
all limited their scope. I mean, of course, that whereas along
the coasts washed by the Baltic, the North Sea and the English
Channel, the sea-farers had either to build a ship or nothing, the
case in the Mediterranean was different. The treacherous waters of
the North Sea or Baltic, the existence of dangerous sand banks and
rushing tides, were an unfair match for delicately designed craft
accustomed to sun-speckled seas. Although the Viking craft had their
full complement of rowers, yet they were far abler ships than the
over-oared boats of Greece and those of the early days of Rome. Right
down to the time of the Spanish Armada, and after, the tendency was
ever for the galley or galleass—the _rowed_ ship rather than the
_sailing_ ship—to linger as long as possible, whereas in the North
the reverse has been the case. I attribute the prevalence of the
“galley” type of craft to two causes—the geographical conditions
of Southern Europe and the abundance of slaves. When any amount of
physical rowing power could be got with such ease and absence of
expense, it was not likely that the sailing ship, _per se_, would
advance. I think there can be no doubt at all that this condition
of affairs kept back both the rig and design of shipping for very
many years. The Southerner’s first aim was to create a craft that
would be fast; the Northerner’s object was to have a ship that would
be seaworthy. The difference between being able to ride out a gale
and that of being able to manœuvre with all possible despatch in
comparatively sheltered waters, will be found to be the basis of
the characteristic features that separate the craft of Northern and
Southern Europe.

[Illustration: FIG 11. GREEK SHIP.

_From Bœotian fibula of the eighth century_ B.C.]

In Fig. 11 we have some indication of a Greek sailing ship or boat of
about the eighth century, when, as we have just said, there existed
the great passion for the sea as a means to wealth. This illustration
has been sketched from a Bœotian fibula, made of bronze, and now
in the British Museum. The boat has not the appearance of being
particularly seaworthy, although it is perfectly clear that she is a
sailing craft. The _aphlaston_ already alluded to will be noticed at
the stern. The bow shows the Phœnician influence with its ram-like
features, and this characteristic continued to exist with similar
prominence till at any rate the beginning of the Christian era.
Opinions differ as to whether the teeth-like projections at bow
and stern are just the extending horizontal timbers. Personally, I
believe they are separate fixtures with bronze or iron tips, those at
the bow for preventing the ram going too far into the enemy’s ship;
those at the stern affording a protection against being rammed by
the enemy. The forestay leads down to what is apparently a primitive
forecastle, and the man in the stern is standing on a platform, but
so crude is the draughtsmanship that it would be unsafe to affirm
that this was raised as high as the forecastle. Some have thought
that this stern arrangement may denote a latticed cabin, but this
seems doubtful. However, it is quite clear that the skipper is either
steering or rowing with his foot as the primitive gondolier, while
his mate is busy as the look-out. The design at the top of the mast
has been thought to be a lantern, but it might also be a flag.

[Illustration: FIG. 12. GREEK WAR GALLEY.

_From a vase_, _c._ 500 B.C.]

Although not shown in this example, many of the early Greek ships had
two forestays and a backstay. The mast was supported at its foot by a
prop, and when lowered it lay aft in a rest, being raised and lowered
by means of the forestays, like the custom of the Thames barge and
the Norfolk wherry-man. Fig. 12 represents a war-galley taken from
a Greek vase of about 500 B.C. It will be found in the Second Vase
Room of the British Museum. The sail (ἱστίον) will be seen hanging
from the yard, together with the brails as already described. The
two halyards come down on either side of the mast. We should presume
that, having the brails, the Greek ships were accustomed to reefing:
but we have actual evidence from the expression used by Aristophanes
“ἄκροισι χρῆσθαι ἱστίος,” “to keep the sails close-reefed.” Similarly
Euripides has the phrase “ἄκροισι λαίφουσ κραπέδοις,” “under
close-reefed sails” (lit. “with the outermost edges of the sail”).
The reefing method is better shown in Fig. 13. If it came on to blow
two hands would be sent aloft to go out along the yard. The brails
one by one would be thrown up to the men, who would pass each brail
once or thrice round the yard, according to the number of reefs
required to be taken in. Fig. 13 shows a ship close-reefed. That
this is no fanciful picture will be seen by the reader who cares to
compare the relief on the tomb of Naevoleja Tyche at Pompei,[13] on
which will be noticed one man on deck getting ready the brails to
throw them up, while two other members of the crew are already out
on the yard, and two more still are climbing up the rigging to help
them, probably by taking up the ends of the brails.

Each yard was composed of two spars lashed together as in the Maltese
galley and Japanese junk of to-day. The Latin word for a yard was
always used in the plural—_antennæ_—to signify the two parts lashed
in one. The boar’s head—a very favourite symbol for this purpose in
early ships—will be noticed at the bow of the war-galley in Fig. 12.
Above it is the forecastle, and running thence astern is a flying
deck, in order that the fighting men might not hinder the work of the
rowers. The two banks of oars will be immediately noticed. Astern
sits the steersman with his two steering-oars. That which hangs from
the stern below is the gangway for going aboard. The crew either
hauled their ships ashore at night, or, laying out anchors from the
bows seaward, carried stern ropes ashore to a rock. The gangway shown
was lowered to the land side, and the crew came aboard from aft.
The reader who is familiar with the Yorkshire cobble and the method
adopted for beaching by the fishermen on the coast above the Humber
will find additional interest in this.

The ship in Fig. 13 is a merchantman. The gangways are very
noticeable. So also is the Egyptian stern with the steering oars.
Amidships will be seen the wattled screens or washboards, acting
as bulwarks for keeping out the spray. A similar arrangement was
customary on the Viking ships, and remains to this day on Norwegian
ships of that kind. At the stern of both this ship and that of the
previous figure will be noticed an ornament resembling some plant.
Perhaps to us moderns the most striking feature of the ship is her
beautiful bow: indeed, had one not seen the actual vase, one might
easily have said that the design was taken from a modern schooner
bow. There are so many points about this merchant ship that attract
us in looking at her that we wonder, not unnaturally, if we have
advanced so much after all during these fourteen hundred years since
she was designed, for such a bow and such a stern would win applause
in any port.

[Illustration: FIG. 13. GREEK MERCHANTMAN.

_From a vase_, _c._ 500 B.C.]

The war-galleys were called longships, and the merchant vessels
roundships. This aptly describes the chief difference which separated
them. Whilst the former were essentially rowing-ships, depending
on oars only as auxiliaries, the merchant ship was primarily a
sailing vessel. Nevertheless she carried twenty oars, not so much
for progression as for turning the ship’s head off the wind, and
perhaps for getting under way and in entering harbour. These trading
ships were generally built throughout of pine, while the war galleys
were of fir, cypress, cedar, or pine, according to the nature of the
forests at hand. The merchantmen had keels of pine, but were provided
with false keels of oak when they had to be hauled ashore or put on
a slip for repairs or other reasons. It was the custom, however, to
keep the merchant ships afloat. We have already pointed out that
the galleys, on the contrary, were usually hauled ashore at night,
and since the friction of their keels would tend to split the wood
it was customary for these latter to be of oak. The masts and yards
and oars were of fir or pine. The timber for the keel was selected
with especial care, as indeed with so much hard wear and tear it was
necessary. Among other woods that were also used may be mentioned
plane, acacia, ash, elm, mulberry and lime—these being employed
especially for the interior of the hull. Alder, poplar and timber of
a balsam tree were used also. Like the Koryaks and the very earliest
inhabitants of Northern Europe, in some outlandish districts of the
Mediterranean the sides of the ship were of leather instead of wood,
but this would be only in cases where the inhabitants were still
unlearned or there was a scarcity of timber.

The ancients did not allow the timber to season thoroughly, because
it would become thereby too stiff to bend. Steaming boxes apparently
had not come into use in shipbuilding. However, after the tree was
felled it was allowed some time for drying, and then, when the ship
was built, some time elapsed for the wood to settle. The seams were
caulked with tow and other packing, being fixed with tar or wax,
the underbody of the ship being coated with wax, tar, or a combined
mixture, the wax being melted over a fire until soft enough to be
laid on with a brush. Seven kinds of paint were used, viz., purple,
violet, yellow, blue, two kinds of white, and green for pirates
in order that their resemblance to the colour of the waves might
make them less conspicuous. As we shall see in Fig. 21, elaborate
designs were painted along the sides, but this appears to have been
a later custom. The latest discoveries in Northern Africa show this
decoration round the side to be very frequent about the second
century of the Christian era. Earlier Greek ships had only patches
of colour on the bows, blue or purple, or vermilion; the rest of the
hull was painted with black tar like many of the coasters and fishing
smacks of to-day. The painting on the bows was probably to facilitate
the recognition of the direction taken by a vessel. Ships were not
copper-bottomed, but sometimes a sheathing of lead with layers of
tarred sail-cloth interposed between was affixed to the hull.

[Illustration: FIG. 14. STERN OF A GREEK SHIP (_c._ 600 B.C.).]

Nails of bronze and iron, and pegs of wood were used for fastening
the planking, the thickness of the latter varying from 2¼ to 5¼
inches. In order to fortify the warships against the terrible
shock of ramming, she had to be strengthened by wales running
longitudinally around her sides. Fig. 14 shows the stern of a Greek
ship of about the fifth century B.C. The wales or strengthening
timbers just mentioned will be easily seen. Fig. 15 exhibits another
example of the boar’s-head bow. These two illustrations are taken
from a coin of Phaselis, in Lycia, now preserved in the British
Museum. The _aphlaston_ will be immediately recognised in Fig. 14.

Like the Egyptian ships, these ancient vessels were also provided
with a stout cable—the ὑπόζωμα in Greek, _tormentum_ in Latin. The
spur for ramming was shod with metal—iron or copper—and was at first
placed below the water line, but subsequently came above it. The
space between the oar-ports was probably about three feet, each
oarsman occupying about five feet of room in width. A galley having
thirty-one seats for rowing would have about seventeen feet of beam.
The draught of these warships was nevertheless very small—perhaps not
more than four or five feet.

[Illustration: FIG. 15. BOAR’S-HEAD BOW OF A GREEK SHIP (_c._ 600
B.C.).]

The old method of naval warfare consisted in getting right up to the
enemy and engaging him alongside in a hand-to-hand fight, spears and
bows and arrows being used. There is an Etruscan vase in the British
Museum of the sixth century, which shows this admirably. At a later
date this method was altered in favour of ramming. The ship would
bear down on the enemy, and an endeavour would be made to come up to
him in such a way as to break off all his oars at one side, thereby
partially disabling him. But if the enemy were smart enough, he would
be able to go on rowing until the critical moment, when with great
dexterity, he would suddenly shorten his oars inwards. We have also
referred to the protection of the stern against the wicked onslaught
of the ram, but the ship ramming, lest her spur should penetrate too
far into the enemy’s stern and so break off, had usually, above,
a head which acted as a convenient buffer. But we must not forget
that sails and mast were lowered before battle, since the galley was
much more handy under oars alone. The excitement of a whole week’s
bumping races on the Isis must be regarded as very slow compared to
the strenuous plashing of oars, the shouts of the combatants, and
the ensuing thud and splintering of timbers that characterised a
Mediterranean engagement.

The reader will find in Fig. 16 one of the finest specimens of a
Greek sailing galley with one bank of oars. It is taken from a vase
in the Third Room in the British Museum, the date being about 500
B.C. As many as eight brails are shown here. The number of these
gradually became so great that we find in the Athenian inventories of
the fourth century B.C. that the rigging of a trireme and quadrireme
included eighteen brails. No doubt, as time went on, it was found
more convenient to be able to brail the sail up at closer intervals.
In the present illustration the sail is furled right up to the yard
and the rowers are doing all the work. Before passing on to another
point we must not fail to notice the fighting bridge or forecastle,
the shape of the blades of the oars, and the decoration of the
stern previously alluded to. A capital instance here is afforded
us of the ever watchful eye which we mentioned in our introductory
chapter as being a notable feature of the ancient ship. It is worth
while remarking, as showing the extent of this practice, that a
representation of an eye is still to be found as a distinguishing
attribute on the Portuguese fishing boats to-day.

[Illustration: FIG. 16. _The Ship of Odysseus._

_From a Greek vase of about_ 500 B.C.]

At the very first, on the Greek as on the Egyptian ships, thongs were
used for rowlocks, but subsequently holes were left, as seen in the
illustration, for the oars to be passed through. Because the mast
had to be taken down before battle, the war galleys were not fully
decked all over. Amidships she was open, but, as we have already seen
bridges or gangways extended fore and aft on either side of the
mast, so that the fighting crew should in no way interfere with the
oarsmen. Partial decks were also found at bow and stern. Even in the
time of Cæsar, we find that completely covered vessels were not in
general use. These flying bridges were placed on supports and then
covered with planks as shown in Fig. 12, leaving the intermediate
hold undecked. The sail was made of several pieces of white canvas
or cloth. Not infrequently they were coloured, a black sail being a
universal sign of mourning, while a purple or vermilion denoted the
ship of an admiral or sovereign. Just as pirates were wont to paint
their ships the colour of the sea, so in the time of war, on board
scout-ships, both sails and ropes were dyed of that hue. One can
easily understand that with the powerful rays of the southern sun
their disguise would have been effectual.

Ropes were made of twisted ox-hide, or fibres of the papyrus plant.
This was the usual practice for many years also in other parts
of Europe. The edges of the sail were bound with hide, the skins
of hyena and seal being especially used for this purpose, as the
sailors believed this would keep off lightning. The Koryaks, also,
still employ seal-hide for sails and ropes. Later on, windlasses
were introduced for working the halyards and cables of the larger
ships. After the crew had gone aboard the galley, and everything was
ready for getting under way, the gangway would be slung from the
stern, and three poles would be used for pushing off from the shore.
It is interesting to remark that the word used for this pole by
Homer—_κοντὸς_.—is still found in the word “quant,” given to a long
pole for pushing the Norfolk wherries in calms along the banks.

[Illustration: FIG. 17. TERRA-COTTA MODEL OF GREEK SHIP OF THE SIXTH
CENTURY B.C.]

The vessel shown in Fig. 17 is a terra-cotta model of a merchant
ship. The socket for the mast will easily be seen. The high stern
aft must not be supposed to have been raised to such an altitude
solely for the convenience of the steersman. The greatest foe that
the merchantman had to contend with was the pirate who swept down
and robbed him of his cargo. Therefore, to obtain some protection,
these traders were usually fitted with turrets of great height,
by means of which missiles could be hurled down on to the enemy
below. It is possible that the side “castles” shown were also used
as some protection for the steersmen, one standing in each with the
protection of a roof over him. Probably, too, on these occasions the
score of oars would be brought out in order to manœuvre quickly. A
merchant ship sometimes carried as many as eight of these turrets
(two in the bows, two in the stern and four amidships). They were
easily movable and were known to have reached to a height of twenty
feet. The model here shown belongs to the sixth century B.C. It will
be noticed that she has a very flat bottom, but this would be a
convenience whenever she had to be beached, for there were only two
sailing seasons—in the spring, and in the months between midsummer
and autumn. After the setting of the Pleiads, the ship was beached
and a stone fence built around her to keep off wind and weather. This
custom, then, would somewhat modify her lines below the waterline.
It was, further, the custom to pull the plug out when laying up for
the winter, so that the water should not rot the bottom. Tackle and
sail and steering oars were carefully stored at home until the fair
weather returned once more. These were the customs as far back as 700
B.C.

The model we have just alluded to was found in Cyprus, and is now in
the British Museum. Many others similar to this have also been found.
There is an amusing legend that Kinyras, king of Cyprus, having
promised to send fifty ships to help the Greeks against Troy, sent
only one, but she carried forty-nine others of terra-cotta manned by
terra-cotta figures.

Although the Phœnicians probably must be credited with the honour
of having invented the trireme, a ship with a triple arrangement of
oars, yet the Greeks were responsible for having developed the use
of this to a considerable extent, especially after the fifth century
B.C. Eventually the word “trireme” denoted not necessarily that she
had this triple arrangement, but became a generic expression for
warships. We have in later history similar instances of the same
designation remaining to a ship even when she has entirely altered
the right to her previous definition. Thus the galleass, which was
essentially a rowing vessel, frequently bore the same name during
the Middle Ages, even when she was a sailing ship proper. A similar
instance may be found in the different meanings which the words
“barge,” “wherry,” “yawl,” “cutter,” and “barque” denote at different
times.

Triremes had two kinds of sails and two kinds of masts, but before
battle the larger sail and the larger mast were always put ashore.
Such enormous yards and masts would be very much in the way on boats
of this kind. Regarding the arrangement of the oars of the trireme
much controversy has been raised. The theories of thirty or more
banks of oars have now been pretty well dismissed. The amount of
freeboard that this would have given to a ship must necessarily have
been colossal, and militated against the very object they had in
view, viz., handiness. It is highly probable that the crew consisted
of two hundred rowers, sixty-two on the highest tier, fifty-four
on the middle and fifty-four on the lowest, in addition to thirty
fighting men stationed on the highest deck. The upper oars would thus
pass over what we now call the gunwale, the second and third rows
being through port holes. Even when very large numbers of oarsmen
are mentioned, we must not suppose that there were so many lines of
rowers as that; several men were needed to each oar. Considering
their weight and the size of later ships, this would seem to be very
necessary.

Before we pass from the subject of the trireme, it is not without
interest to mention that in the year 1861 Napoleon III. had
constructed a trireme 39 metres in length and 5½ metres in beam. She
carried 130 oarsmen, who were placed two by two. Of these forty-four
were on the first row, the same number on the second, and forty-two
on the top. Like her ancestors she had a three-fold spur, a rostrum,
and two steering oars. But to us a far more important piece of
information lies in the fact that she was actually experimented
with on the sea at Cherbourg in good weather. It was found that she
bore out all that had ever been written by the ancient historians
concerning her: for she was both very fast and could be manœuvred
with great ease.[14] According to the ancients, a trireme could
average as much as seven and a half knots an hour, covering one
hundred and ten during a day. The merchant ship was going at a good
pace when she reeled off her five knots an hour. Her average was
about sixty knots in a day: but during a whole day and night, with
a favourable wind, she was capable of doing as much as a hundred and
thirty. Comparing this speed with the craft of to-day, it may be
worth noting that the average day’s run of a moderate-sized coaster
would work out at a hundred or hundred and twenty knots. The speed of
the ships of the Mediterranean was not slow, then, though they would
appear ridiculous if compared with some of the marvellous passages
made by the famous old clippers of the second half of the nineteenth
century of our era.

The navigation employed by the Greeks was that of coasting from port
to port, from one headland across a bay to another. There was no
such thing, of course, as being able to lay a compass course from
one point to another out of sight. The system of buoyage was also
non-existent, but there were lighthouses, as we know from designs on
ancient pottery and reliefs. On certain points of the land the Greeks
erected high towers, the most ancient of these being at the entrance
to the Ægean Sea—about 800 B.C. Later, about the period of 300 B.C.,
a tower was raised on the island of Pharos, near Alexandria. At
its summit two wooden fires were kept burning constantly, so that
the flame by night and the smoke by day might aid the primitive
navigators. In the fourth century B.C., however, Pytheas, by means of
an instrument called the _gnomon_, which indicated the height of the
sun by the direction of the shadow cast on a flat surface, determined
the day of the summer solstice, to which the greatest height of
the sun corresponds. He thus succeeded in fixing the latitude of
Marseilles.

[Illustration: FIG. 18. A COIN OF APOLLONIA, SHOWING SHAPE OF ANCHOR.]

We have already mentioned that when a galley was cleared for action
she sent her big spars and sails ashore. One set of double halyards
of course served for these, the larger sails and spars being no
doubt for fair weather when near the shelter of the land. Mr. Torr
in his excellent little book,[15] which is a mine of information,
the result of considerable classical research, gives the name of
_akation_ to the smaller gear—mast, sail and yard included. He
mentions the very interesting fact that the expression “hoisting
the akation” became synonymous with “running away” from the enemy.
Aristophanes made use of the phrase in a play produced in 411 B.C.

The names _dolon_ in 201 B.C. and _artemon_ found mentioned about
100 B.C., were also used to indicate the smaller masts and sails. We
shall refer to this latter again presently. Anchors are supposed to
have been among the inventions of Anacharsis. In the earliest times
they were, as one would expect, merely a heavy weight of stone. Then
they were made of iron, and later on of lead. Fig. 18 shows that the
shape was a cross between a modern “mushroom” anchor and the ordinary
one in everyday use. The triangular space at the crown was used for
bending on a tripping line. The illustration is of a coin found in
Apollonia (in Thrace), and now in the British Museum. The date is
about 420 B.C. Two anchors were carried by galleys, and three or
four by merchantmen. Even in those days the mariners understood the
usefulness of marking the position of their anchors with cork floats.
The cables were of chain and of rope. Flags and lights were used on
the admiral’s ship, three being allowed for the latter and one for
galleys.

[Illustration: FIG. 19. A ROMAN WARSHIP.]

The illustration in Fig. 19 has been taken from De Baïf’s book,[16]
not so much because it gives a representative picture of what a
Roman warship was like, as for the fact that the various parts of
the ship may by this means be made somewhat clearer than if we had
an ancient relief before us. I have, up till now, throughout this
chapter, included Roman vessels under the description given to the
Greek ships, there being for a long time but little difference. In
Fig. 19, A is the fighting top; BB are the ends or “horns” of the
sail yards; CC are the _antennæ_ or yards; D is the mast; E is the
_carchesium_ or upper part of the mast to which the halyards led; F
is the _trachelus_, being half-way up the mast; G is the _pterna_
or heel of the mast; HH are the _opiferi funes_ or braces; I is a
rope—_calos_ (ladder); KK are the backstays; L is the figurehead,
the _parasemon_ or distinguishing mark, so that in a fleet of ships,
each alike as to rig and size, this would be very necessary; M is
the stern; N is the turret or forecastle already discussed above; O
is the prow; P is the all-vigilant eye which the ship was supposed
to possess; Q is the _rostrum_, beak or boar’s head, while R is the
_rostrum tridens_ with its three-toothed ram; S is the _epotides_
or cathead whence the anchor was let down. The word is used by
Euripides and Thucydides. T is the _katastroma_ or flying deck, that
the marines might be able to fight without hindering the rowers; V,
of course, shows the oars, X the hull; Y is the _dryochus_ which
properly means one of the trestles or props on which the keel for
a new ship is laid; Z is the _clavus_ or handle of the tiller; “&”
refers to the tiller itself.

Fig. 20 is also taken from De Baïf, and is reproduced here not as
being an accurate representation of a Roman sailing ship, but because
it well illustrates by its exaggeration several points not easily
discernible in other reproductions. The inclined mast in the bows
carries the artemon sail, but it is out of all proportion. A is
the steersman; BB are the oarsmen; C is the πρωράτης, or in Latin
_proreta_—the look-out man; D represents the beak—τα ἀκρωτήρια,
the extremities of the ship; E is the θρόνος, or seat of authority
for the steersman. (Compare a similarity in the illustration of
Furttenbach’s galley, in Fig. 58.)

[Illustration: FIG. 20. ROMAN SHIP.]

Coming now to the ships of much later date, the dimensions were
sometimes pushed to vast extremes. Exulting as we rightly are in
these days of magnificent liners of immense tonnage and luxurious
comfort, it seems astounding that the ancients, when they had
embraced self-indulgence whole-heartedly and set forth to throw away
their fine energies in wasteful and extravagant pleasures, should
at so early a date have built mammoth ships fitted with the most
luxurious deck-houses, with bronze baths and marbled rooms, with
paintings and statues and mosaics in their sumptuous saloons, with
libraries and covered walks along the decks, ornamented with rows
of vines and fruit trees planted in flower-pots. Even the ample
luxury and the small trees on the decks of the _Mauretania_ have not
yet reached to such excesses of civilisation. Throughout the third
century B.C., several of these monstrosities were built by the kings
of Sicily, Macedonia, Alexandria and Asia. The size of one of these
“floating palaces” (to use here aptly a much abused expression) may
be gathered from the dimensions of one of them, which was 280 cubits
long, 38 cubits wide, while the stem rose to a height of 48 cubits
above the water. Nevertheless, her draught, in spite of so much
top-hamper, did not exceed 4 cubits, and she carried seven rams, was
fitted with a double and stern, and had no less than four steering
paddles.

Could we but see some of these ancient mammoth ships, could we
but wander through their saloons looking up at the wonderful
statuary, marvelling at the spaciousness of the tiled galleries, how
interesting it would be! How we should thrill with delight at being
once more transported into the ships of Roman times! Of course,
you will say, such a thing is impossible. Even if representations
are preserved on tomb or mosaic of contemporary ships it would be
ridiculous to expect that the ships themselves should still exist.
But we all know that truth is sometimes wonderfully romantic, and
in the history of ships there are some amazing surprises always
ready for our attention. Let us say at once, then, that two of these
floating palaces of the time of Caligula are in existence to-day in
Italy. Their details are interesting to the highest degree, and the
following account, based, as will be seen, on actual experiences
of those who have been into the ships, agrees with the historical
descriptions already referred to. For the valuable particulars of
these two ships of Caligula, I am indebted to Mr. St. Clair Baddeley
and to Señor Malfatti.[17]

Caligula possessed that overpowering passion for water and ships
which throughout the world’s history has always manifested itself in
explorer or privateer, yachtsman, or whomsoever else. Suetonius[18]
says that this megalomaniac had built two galleys with ten banks of
oars, each having a poop that blazed with jewels and sails that were
parti-coloured. These “galleys” were fitted with baths, galleries,
saloons, and supplied with a great variety of growing trees and
vines. In one of these ships, Caligula was wont to sail in the
daytime along the coast of Campania, feasting amidst dancing and
concerts of music.

Now, in the northern end of the Lake of Nemi, not far from the
Campanian coast, there still lie to this day, at right angles to
each other, two such galleys as Suetonius describes. Recent research
beneath the water has revealed much that is invaluable to us in the
study of the sailing ship. From the inscriptions on several lengths
of lead piping laid for the purpose of supplying the galleys with
water, and which have been brought up by divers, it is proved that
these belonged to Caligula, and that therefore they are of the remote
period of 37-41 A.D. And this date has been further corroborated by
the discovery of tiles and bronze sculptures found on board.

The history of the efforts to make these galleys speak to us from
the depths of their watery grave is almost as interesting as their
very existence. During the fifteenth century, owing to the fact
that fishermen on the lake frequently in their nets drew ashore
objects of wood and bronze, divers were sent below and discovered the
undoubted existence of a ship of some sort. At last ropes were made
fast and endeavours were made to draw the vessel to shallow water,
but these efforts were only crowned with the unfortunate result of
breaking off part of the stem. However, the nails were found to be
of bronze, whilst in length some were as much as a cubit. The wood
was discovered to be larch, and the vessel to be sheathed with lead,
covering a stiff lining of woollen-cloth padding fastened on by
bronze studs. It is important to note that the ancients in 37 A.D.
had the good sense to realise what Sir Philip Howard, and other
naval authorities in the time of Charles II., did not discover until
the year 1682, that lead sheathing round a ship, used with iron
nails, was bound to set up corrosion.[19]

Further operations on Lake Nemi were suspended until the year 1535,
when an expert went below to the ship again. A large amount of her
wood was brought to the surface, and was found to consist of pine
and cypress, as well as the larch previously noticed. The pegs were
of oak, and many bronze nails in perfect preservation were rescued
from the deep. These, said the diver, fastened the plate of lead to
the hull of the ship. There was also a lining of linen between the
lead and the timber, whilst within the ship were pavements of tiles
two feet square, and segments of red marble and enamel. He also makes
reference to the rooms of this watery palace. As to her size, this
was found to be about 450 feet long, and about 192 broad, whilst the
height from keel to deck was about 51 feet.

Various attempts were made in 1827 by means of a diving bell, but no
success resulted, and it was not until September of 1905 that a fresh
search was made by divers, when both galleys were located at a depth
of thirty feet of water. “By attaching long cords with corks to the
galleys, the divers,” says Mr. Baddeley, “sketched out in outlines
on the surface the shape of the vessels.” The length of the other
vessel was found to be 90 feet by 26 feet beam. The decks were paved
with elaborate mosaic work in porphyry, green serpentine and _rosso
antico_, intermingled with richly-coloured enamel. The bulwarks
were found to be cast in solid bronze and to have been once gilded,
for traces of the latter were manifest. From the other vessel lying
nearer in-shore, the divers brought up various beautiful sculptures.
The outer edge of the vessel is covered with cloth smeared with
pitch, and over this occur folds of thin sheet lead, doubled over
and fastened down upon it with copper nails.

It is thought that these galleys were designed by their builder
Caligula in imitation of those he used along the Campanian coast
which, though sailing ships, were rather of the nature of floating
villas. As to their purpose, it is probable that they were connected
with the worship of Virbius and of Diana. There, then, at the bottom
of Lake Nemi, these two galleys lie—still in existence, though owing
to their long immersion and the depth of the water their ultimate
recovery is extremely doubtful.

Among the many interesting items of marine information which we are
enabled to gather from the voyages of St. Paul, we find[20] that the
lead-line was in use, for we are told that “they sounded and found
it twenty fathoms: and when they had gone a little further they
sounded again and found it fifteen fathoms.” Also they “were in all
in the ship two hundred threescore and sixteen souls,” so she was
a vessel of considerable size. Then in the morning, having espied
a snug little creek with a good shore for beaching, “when they had
slipped their anchors they left them in the sea, at the same time
loosing the rudder bands, hoisted up the artemon, and made towards
the beach.” They had, no doubt long previously, learned the action
which has saved many hundreds of ships, at all times of the world’s
history, from foundering, by detaching the cable from the ship and
not waiting to heave up the anchor. Moreover, they had found a nice
beach under their lee, so the artemon or foresail was hoisted up the
small foremast, and she would be able to make the beach without too
much way on, and without the enormous amount of work that would have
been necessary had the mainsail been set—a proceeding, considering
the weather about, that they were not anxious to attempt. “Artemon”
is the word used in the Greek of the New Testament: the translation
of this as “mainsail” in the authorised version is of course quite
wrong. The later ships were fitted with a mainsail and mast, but also
a small foremast tilted at an angle of perhaps twenty-three degrees
projected out from the bows, on which another small square sail was
set. This was the artemon or foresail, and it would be in just such
a manœuvre as this, or for giving the ship a sheer when getting up
the cable or when coming into port even in fine weather, that this
headsail would be found of the greatest use. We must not forget that
this kind of foremast and foresail continued right till the beginning
of the nineteenth century on all full-rigged ships, in the form of
bowsprit and spritsail, until the triangular headsails with which
we are so familiar nowadays came in. Finally, before we leave the
voyages of St. Paul, we must not omit to notice the reference to the
statement that after the anchors had been slipped they _loosed the
rudder bands_. Instead of leaving the rudders to get foul of the
stern cables when they had put out the four anchors, or to run the
risk of being dashed to pieces by the waves, the ropes extending
from the stern to the extremities of the steering oars would be
hauled up so that the blades were quite clear of the water. It was
a similar operation to a Thames barge hauling up her leeboards.
Therefore, having cast off their anchors and being under way again,
the rudder-ropes would necessarily be lowered. The same method of
“rudder-bands” obtained among the Vikings. If the reader will turn to
Fig. 29, of the Gogstad Viking ship, he will readily appreciate this
point.

I am not going to enter here into any discussion as to the authorship
of the Acts of the Apostles, but whoever he may have been had an
accurate knowledge of the ships of his time, for we are able to see
just the same kind of ship as St. Paul’s in a merchantman of about
the year 50 A.D. and another of seventeen years later. The artemon
mast and sail are well shown. It was, of course, the artemon mast
that was the forerunner of the modern bowsprit. One can estimate the
size of the mercantile ships of the Mediterranean of about the first
and second centuries from Lucian, who refers to a merchantman engaged
in the corn-carrying trade between Egypt and Italy. Her length was
180 feet, her breadth a little more than a quarter of her length,
while her depth from upper deck to bottom of hold was 43½ feet. The
registered tonnage of the largest trading ships was about 150.

[Illustration: FIG. 21. ROMAN MERCHANT SHIPS.]

We have in Fig. 21 a very instructive illustration of two Roman
merchant ships of about the year 200 A.D. This has been copied from a
relief found near the mouth of the Tiber. The advance in shipbuilding
since the times of the Egyptians has continued. The great high stern
is still there, the bow remaining lower than the poop. The steering
oar is very well shown, together with the “rudder bands” that we have
just spoken of. They will be found to be two in number, coming down
from the ship’s quarter, and passing through holes bored in the blade
of the rudder. The tiller is of considerable length. The decoration
under the stern with classical figures is very beautiful, while above
is the familiar swan’s neck which accentuates the general duck-like
lines of the ship. Three bollards aft and four forward, are seen for
mooring purposes. The shape of the stem is worth noting for this must
have been fairly common in big ships, and we shall find something
very similar in the vessels of Northern Europe up to the fourteenth
century. The rigging shows to what knowledge they had attained by
now. The dead-eyes for setting up the shrouds, the purchase for
getting the powerful forestay down tight, together with a similar
arrangement on the artemon mast, are deserving of careful notice.
The mainsail will be seen to be hoisted by two halyards, foot-ropes
apparently being provided for the men sent up to furl it. I have
noticed that in most of the old illustrations depicting men going
aloft, the sailors usually ascend naked. This will be observed in
the present illustration. The obvious conclusion is that they wished
to be perfectly free and unfettered in their movements and to run no
risk of their garments being caught in the rigging. The ships are
moored to the quay by taking the stay of the artemon ashore. There
is a different figurehead on the bows of each ship, while in the
background, to the left of the middle of the picture, will be seen
the warning beacon previously alluded to, the building below it with
small windows being probably the leading lights for coming into the
harbour. The sail has a triangular topsail in two pieces without a
yard of its own. The yard of the mainsail appears now to be made in
one piece instead of two, but the point where, owing to the binding
together of the two pieces, the yard was thickest, is still so in the
centre. The sheets and braces will be recognised at once, but we must
say a word regarding the brails that were now employed. If the reader
will examine the sail shown set in this illustration, he will find
that the brails pass through rings on the fore-side of the canvas,
then either through the top of the sail or just over it, between
the yard and the edge of the sail itself, and so down to the stern.
In the picture three of the brails are seen coming down so as to be
within reach of the steersman. The action of brailing or reefing,
then, must have been somewhat similar to the process of drawing up
the domestic blinds that are familiar to us by the name of Venetian.
The reader will no doubt have seen many drop-curtains in our theatres
of to-day worked on the same principle as these brails worked the
Roman sails.

[Illustration: FIG. 22. ROMAN SHIP ENTERING HARBOUR.

_From an earthenware lamp in the British Museum._]

The sails were not infrequently ornamented. The present illustration
shows a sail bearing the devices of a Roman emperor. Topsails had
come into use quite a hundred and fifty years before this ship, but
they were far more popular on the Mediterranean than in the more
boisterous waters of Northern Europe.

Fig. 22, taken from an earthenware lamp in the British Museum, shows
another ship of this period entering harbour. The sail is furled
to the yard, there is a crew of six on board, one of whom is at
the helm, one is at the stern blowing a trumpet announcing their
approach—an incident that one often sees depicted in the early seals
of English ships—three men are engaged in furling the sails, and the
man in the bows is standing by to let go the anchor. At the extreme
left of the picture will be seen the lighthouse. I am sorry it is not
possible to give the reader a better illustration of this lamp, but
it is of such nature as almost to defy satisfactory reproduction.
Fig. 23, taken from another lamp in the same museum, represents a
harbour with buildings on the quay in the background. A man is seen
fishing from his boat in the foreground, with another man ashore
about to cast a net into the water.

[Illustration: FIG. 23. FISHING-BOAT IN HARBOUR.

_From an earthenware lamp in the British Museum._]

I am fortunate in being able to supplement our previous knowledge
of ships of this period by some important information that has been
brought to light through excavations and discoveries near Tunis in
Northern Africa. These were completed by M. P. Gauckler only as
recently as the year 1904, and I am indebted to his very interesting
account[21] for much of the information to be derived from these.
In a building at Althiburus, near to Tunis, a mosaic was unearthed
containing about thirty representations of several kinds of sailing
and rowing boats. Below nearly every one the artist has thoughtfully
put the name of each craft, usually in both Greek and Latin. Not
one of these is a war-vessel. This is exceedingly fortunate, since
hitherto we have possessed far less information of the trading
vessels than of the biremes, triremes and Liburnian galleys. But the
ships in the Althiburus mosaic all belong entirely to the mercantile
marine. The discovery, in fact, has brought to light the most
complete and precise catalogue we possess of ancient ships of Rome.
M. Gauckler thinks that this list has been taken from some glossary
or nautical handbook written about the middle of the first century
before our era. He fixes the date of the mosaics as about 200 A.D.,
and the evidence of the ships themselves certainly confirms the view
that they belong to some period not much before the time of the birth
of our Lord.

The mosaic includes a number of craft that were not sailing ships,
such as the _schedia_ or raft, the _tesseraria_, a rowing boat called
the _paro_, the _musculus_ or _mydion_, and the _hippago_, a pontoon
for transporting horses across a waterway. But whether sailing or
rowing boats, they all bear unmistakable traces of the influence
of the Phœnician, Greek and Roman war-galleys. Almost every craft
shows an effort, not altogether successful, to break away from the
design that had dominated the Mediterranean so long, for we must not
forget that it is an historical fact that the Romans, though they
brought the war-galley as near perfection as possible, did this at
the expense of the merchant ships, which they sadly neglected. It is
only natural, of course, that a nation that is always at war has no
time to expand its merchant shipping. The reverse was the case with
the Egyptians, who, being more of a peace-loving nature, developed
their cargo ships far more, for it was not until fairly late in
Egyptian history that the warship was attended to; we may even go so
far as to assert that it was not until the time of the Middle Ages
that the merchant ship both of the Mediterranean and the North of
Europe, made any real progress. As long as civilisation was scanty
and pirates were rampant on every sea, commerce was bound to remain
at a standstill. Indeed, in the time of the early Greeks, it was
thought no act of discourtesy to ask a seafaring stranger whether he
was a pirate or merchant. So accustomed are we in these days to peace
and plenty that we have need to remind ourselves constantly that
there were no trade routes kept open, no policing of the seas, no
international treaties nor diplomatic relations to prevent a peaceful
merchant ship from disappearing altogether on the high seas, or
staggering into port with the loss of her cargo and most of her crew.

The Egyptian stern still survives in these mosaics with
modifications, but the greatest difficulty the naval architects
appear to have had was with the bow. What to do with the ram-like
entrance has obviously been a source of great worry. In the end, so
that the merchant ship might not look too war-like, a curve has been
added above the bulwarks at the bows to balance the curve at the
waterline of the ram. The rowing arrangements exhibit a square hole
in the gunwale for the oar to pass through.

Of the sailing boats and ships depicted in mosaic the _corbita_ shows
a freer design than the others. She is more or less crescent-shaped
and not unlike the earlier caravels in hull. A ship of burthen, she
has a mast, and the steering oar is seen at the starboard. Another
illustration of this type of “corvette” is shown with a steering oar
at each side, the sail furled to the yard, a couple of braces and the
mast supported by six shrouds—three forward and three aft. The mast
has a great rake forward, and there appears to be a narrow platform
running round the hull as a side-walk, a relic, no doubt, of the
flying deck that kept the marines separate from the rowers.

Another sailing ship called the _catascopiscus_ obviously derived
her name from the corresponding Greek word meaning to reconnoitre or
scout; for she was famous as a light, fast-sailing ship. Her mast
and sail are shown in the mosaic, as well as the halyards and the
brailing lines.

The _actuaria_ was a light, easily propelled ship, similar to the
last. The mosaic (reproduced in Fig. 24) shows the sail furled to
the yard and, what is significant, a rope-ladder, up which one of
the sailors is ascending. Of the other two men one is sculling with
two oars, while the captain is seen in the bows holding a mallet,
which he knocks on the boat that the sculler may keep correct time
and rhythm in a manner not very far separated from the exhortations
of the “cox” of our University eights. This was the kind of ship
which Cæsar employed during an expedition to Brittany, and will be
referred to again in the next chapter.

[Illustration: FIG. 24. NAVIS ACTUARIA.

_From a mosaic at Althiburus, near Tunis._]

Another sailing ship, called by the artist a _myoparo_, shows
two halyards, and the sail divided curtain-like as we saw in the
Phœnician ships. She also has the Egyptian stern and a modified
galley bow. The _myoparo_ was a light, swift vessel, chiefly used by
pirates. The stem of the English word “peir” (meaning to _attempt_
to rob) is thus found in the name of the ship. Plutarch makes use of
the name of this species of ship. The _prosumia_ contains just such
a sail as we saw in Fig. 21, the brails being very clearly shown.
A sailing ship called a _ponto_ has a small artemon foremast and
main. The former has shrouds to support it, but the yard and sail
are not shown. They would be kept in the hold somewhere, and only
fitted when specially needed. This ship is of Gallic origin, and is
mentioned by Cæsar, who refers to the “pontones quod est genus navium
Gallicarum.”[22] Finally, in these mosaics, we have the _cladivata_,
a ship that resembles the vessel referred to by Mr. Torr in his
“Ancient Ships” as having been found at Utica, and belonging to about
the year 200 A.D. This _cladivata_ has also two masts and sails of
similar size, with the brailing arrangement of this period as already
shown. There is some uncertainty concerning the derivation of the
word, but it possibly owes its origin to being named after Claudius.

Such, then, was the development of the sailing ship in the waters
of Southern Europe. We shall now, leaving behind the first ships
that sailed the Mediterranean, proceed in our enquiry to the shores
of Northern Europe, and consider what was the nature of their ships
which had to voyage under conditions far less encouraging than those
of the warm southern seas.




CHAPTER IV.

THE EARLY SHIPS OF NORTHERN EUROPE.


The evidence that we possess, in order accurately to judge, of the
early ships that sailed the seas of the Baltic, German Ocean, Bay
of Biscay, and English Channel, is both conclusive and diverse. We
have in the writings of Cæsar and Tacitus, many details of ships that
are of considerable interest. This literature is supplemented by the
old Sagas[23] of Scandinavia, which, though highly informative, err
on the side of exaggeration. Rock sculptures existing in the land
of the Vikings, though somewhat the subject of controversy, are, in
the writer’s opinion, of real, valuable help in the study of sailing
ships. There is also some evidence of later ships in the old coins of
Northern Europe. But it is when we come to the important excavations
that have revealed—nearly always accidentally—the ships of a bygone
age, many hundreds of years old, that we are confronted with the
most undeniable and complete source of information that one could
desire.

These excavations have revealed discoveries of two kinds, which we
shall deal with as we proceed. In Great Britain, and in Germany,
various examples of the prehistoric “dug-out” have been unearthed.
The Museums of Edinburgh, York, Bremen, and Kiel, happily contain
these interesting craft, preserved for the wonder of future
generations. The second class is more valuable still, and far more
picturesque, for thanks to the burial customs of the old sea-chiefs,
there have been excavated from certain mounds in Norway, wonderful
old Viking ships in a state of preservation that is remarkable when
we consider how many centuries they have lain under the earth.
Therefore, fortunate as we deemed ourselves in being able to have
such sources of information as models and reproductions of the ships
of Southern Europe, we are far more happy in our present section for
we can go to the fountain head direct—the ships themselves.

To us members of the Anglo-Saxon race, the importance of the forces
at work during the period we are about to consider cannot be lightly
estimated. The influence of the Viking, or double-ended type of
ship, dominated the whole of the coast-line from Norway to the land
as far south as the northern shores of Spain, right from the period
that followed the construction of mere dug-outs, until almost the
close of the fifteenth century of our era. That is to say, as soon
as ever the North European became sufficiently civilised to _build_
rather than to hew his craft: as soon as he undertook the making of
ships rather than of boats—he came under the power of that naval
architecture, which we see illustrated in the ships of the Veneti
and Scandinavians; and, irrespective of geographical position, of
language, of tribe or of nation, the civilised inhabitants living on
that vast stretch of littoral, from the North Cape to the southern
boundary of the Bay of Biscay, continued in the same conventions
of design and build for many hundreds of years. It is a striking
proof of the accurate knowledge in shipbuilding and ship-designing
possessed by these early Northerners when we remember that, even
to this day, that influence, far from disappearing, shows a strong
tendency to increase, at any rate, in the architecture of yachts and
fishing boats. Thus, the Egyptians, who moulded for ever afterwards
the lines of the ships of the Mediterranean, have in Northern Europe,
their counterpart in the Norsemen. What the galley was to the south,
the Viking ship has been to us living in colder climes.

The obvious question occurs at this point as to what, if any, is the
connection between the Mediterranean galley and the ship of the North
Sea. That there is some similarity will be realised when we collect
the following characteristics. And first, the very shape of both
kinds of vessels—long, narrow, flat-bottomed; then the arrangement
of the large squaresail with its braces and rigging; the mode of
steering at the side; the pavisado that ran round the ship to protect
the men from the enemy; the spur with which they rammed the enemy’s
ships; the girdle that went round the ship to prevent damage caused
by ramming; the ornamentation of the head of the vessel; their very
methods of naval warfare, and finally, their adoption later of
fore-castles and stern-castles—what else do these similarities show
but that there existed a common influence? With such evidence before
us, it becomes somewhat difficult to find agreement with those who
contend that between the two classes of ships there is no connection
whatever, except such as chance might have brought about. I am not
denying that there are important differences between the ships of
the two seas, but I contend that such important resemblances to each
other need an explanation more scientific than can be ascribed to
chance.

But assuming that we are right in our surmise, by what means were
these early Norwegians affected by the southern design? Were they
influenced by Roman civilisation? That they certainly were not. Then
the southerners came to them?[24] Here is our contention. Though we
have no actual proof, it seems justifiable to suppose that those
great travellers and sea-folk, the Phœnicians, who, we have seen,
were unsurpassed in their time for seamanship and shipbuilding; who
have been said to have voyaged to the setting sun as far as America,
and to have crossed the Bay of Biscay to Ireland and Cornwall, might
have taken advantage of the prevailing westerly wind which blows
across our land and have held on until they had touched the shores
of Denmark or Norway. But why should they, do you ask? We have seen
that the Phœnicians were not merely great sailormen, not merely
adventurous, not merely eager explorers, but practical business-men,
merchants, traders. If they had found ore in Cornwall, would they not
have been inclined to seek other lands for what they could barter or
wrest ere returning to their own homes? Even supposing the Phœnicians
never crossed to South America, we know that they circumnavigated
Africa. A land that bred seamen of that daring and ability would not
be lacking in the kind of men to discover Norway.

And there is still another reason, it seems to me, why the Phœnicians
might have felt tempted to go eastward after Cornwall. Ignorant as
they were of the world’s geography, might they not have thought
that, just as by sailing round always to the starboard they had
encircled Africa, so having performed roughly a semi-circle from the
Mediterranean to the English Channel, if they kept their course over
the wilderness of sea in front of them, they would ultimately find
that Europe, like Africa, was an island, too, and that the nearer
they approached the rising of the sun the sooner would they see their
homes again?

And if we are told to explain the differences between, on the one
hand, the ships of the Phœnicians or their later descendants the
Greeks and Romans, and on the other, those of the Vikings, it is but
natural that, given a general design which has originated in the
smoother waters of the Mediterranean, it must necessarily be somewhat
modified for the nasty seas of the Baltic and German Ocean, where
sudden changes of wind are but the harbingers of the rapid approach
of bad weather. Cæsar, when he came north into Brittany, was struck,
in comparing the ships of the Veneti with his own, by the superior
seaworthiness of the former, and adds significantly that “considering
the nature of the place and the violence of the storms, they were
more suitable and better adapted.”[25] There is to-day a far greater
difference in England between the sailing ships of one port and
another than there was between the old Viking vessels and those of
the Phœnicians. If you cruise round from one coast of Great Britain
to another, you will find in the Scotch fishing craft, the Yorkshire
cobble, the Yarmouth fishing smack, the Lowestoft “drifter,” the
Thames “bawley,” the Deal galley, the Itchen Ferry transom-sterned
cutters, the Brixham “Mumble Bees,” the Falmouth Quay-punt, the
Bristol Channel pilot, and the Manx lugger, a wonderful complexity
of designs and rigs, but the reason is always that that particular
design and rig have been found to be the most suitable adaptation for
each particular coast.

So it was with the Vikings. They modified the Phœnician design to
their local requirements, without, nevertheless, neglecting those
features essential to a good ship. After they had been shipbuilders
for some time they would rapidly learn for themselves the values of
length and beam, of draught and sweet lines, of straight keel, with
high stem to breast a wave, and high stern to repel a following sea.
Double-ended as they were, there was a reason for this essential
difference from the Phœnicians. Such seas as they had in the North
would not suffer their ships to be beached always in fine weather. So
in order that they could be brought to land with either end on, and
in order, too, that in sea-fights they might easily manœuvre astern
or ahead, the Viking ships were built with a bow both forward and aft.

But long before ever the Phœnician ships came to the shores of
Northern Europe there were boats and sailing ships. No doubt the
prehistoric man in the north was driven to finding some means of
transportation across the fjord by the same stern mother Necessity
that first induced that primitive whom we saw learning his elementary
seamanship on the Tigris or Euphrates. That ancient Northerner of
the Stone Age made a wonderfully historic discovery when he found
that he could make an edge to his stone, and that thereby he was
able to cut both flesh and wood. “For,” says Mr. Eiríkr Magnússon in
his interesting essay,[26] “on the edge, ever since its discovery,
has depended and probably will depend to the end of time the whole
artistic and artificial environment of human existence, in all its
infinitely varied complexity.... By this discovery was broken down
a wall that for untold ages had dammed up a stagnant, unprogressive
past, and through the breach were let loose all the potentialities
of the future civilisation of mankind. It was entirely due to the
discovery of the edge that man was enabled, in the course of time, to
invent the art of shipbuilding.”

The monoxylon—the boat made from one piece of timber—as fashioned by
the early sailorman of the Stone Age, is even still used in parts
of Sweden and Norway. Indeed it still bears the name which is the
equivalent of “oakie,” showing that it was originally made out of
the oak-trunk, which is the thickest and therefore the most suitable
trunk to be found in the forests of the North Sea coast, a region,
that in the time of the Stone Age was densely wooded with oak trees.
Afterwards, this monoxylon or dug-out, in order that she may be made
so strong as to carry as many as forty men, is strengthened with
ribs, and the flat bottom has the modification of a keel added. The
vessel that was found at Brigg in Lincolnshire in May 1886 (_see_
Fig. 25) is of this kind. A similar kind of boat was found in the
Valdermoor marsh in Schleswig-Holstein during the year 1878, and
is now in the Kiel Museum. As there are other similar boats in
existence, perhaps it may interest the reader if we deal with these
discoveries a little more fully.

The Valdermoor boat has the following dimensions: length 41 feet,
greatest width 4.33 feet, depth inside 19 inches, depth outside 20½
inches. The thickness of the wood is 1½ inches at the bottom and 1¼
at the top. The boat had eleven ribs, of which nine now exist. On
the gunwale between the ribs, eleven holes were made for inserting
oars. Both the stem and stern are sharp. The keel, 6½ feet in length,
is worked out of the wood at both ends of the boat, leaving the
middle flat. I am sorry not to be able to present an illustration
of this before the reader, but the director of the Kiel Museum
informs me that the boat is in such a position as to prevent it being
photographed.

However, the Brigg boat is very similar to the Valdermoor and may
serve the purposes of illustration equally well. This craft was
found by workmen excavating for a new gasometer upon the banks of the
river Ancholme, in North Lincolnshire. It had been resting apparently
on the clay bottom of the sloping beach of an old lagoon. It was
obviously made out of the trunk of a tree, and perfectly straight,
its dimensions being: 48 feet 6 inches long, about 6 feet wide, 2
feet 9 inches deep. The stern represents the butt end of a tree with
diameter of 5 feet 3 inches. The cubic contents of the boat would
be about 700 cubic feet. The prow is rounded off as if intended for
a ram, and a cavity in the head of the prow appears to have been
intended for a bowsprit, whereby the forestay could be made fast.
In fact, a piece of crooked oak suitable for this purpose was found
adjacent to the prow. Whilst the bottom of this dug-out is flat, the
sides are perpendicular and there is a kind of overhanging counter at
the stern.

The boat was formerly in the possession of Mr. V. Cary-Elwes,
F.S.A.,[27] to whom I have to express my thanks for his courtesy
in supplying me with some information regarding the boat here
reproduced. The ship was offered by this gentleman to the British
Museum, but was declined as being too big. It therefore remains in
a small provincial town difficult of access and for the most part
unknown. It would be impossible to remove the craft now, without
risk of total destruction, but is it not a little humiliating that
continental and provincial museums should see fit to harbour similar
relics as this Brigg boat, while our great national store-house
refuses a gift of such importance? I make no apology to the reader
for giving in detail the result of this Brigg discovery, for it
is one of the finest if not the most instructive of any craft of
this kind that has come to light in Northern Europe. An interesting
account has been written by the Rev. D. Cary-Elwes, son of the
above, and to this I am indebted for some of the following
facts.[28]

[Illustration: FIG. 25. THE VIKING BOAT DUG UP AT BRIGG.
LINCOLNSHIRE.]

The boat is hollowed out of one huge oak log, which, from the
dimensions given above, would necessitate a tree 18 feet in
circumference, and of such a height that the branches did not begin
until 50 feet from the ground. Such a tree would be gigantic. The
bows are almost a semi-circle when viewed from above, and are rounded
off gradually to the bottom and sides, the latter being about two
inches thick and the bottom four inches. The stern, however, is no
less than sixteen inches. The transom has had to be fixed separately
on to the trunk, and the difficulty was to perform such a piece of
shipbuilding so as to make this part of the vessel as strong and
water-tight as the sides and bottom. The caulking of the joints has
been done with moss, the transom fitting into a groove across the
floor. In order that the sides of the ship might not give, in bad
weather, Mr. Cary-Elwes thinks, a tight lashing was thrown across
from one side to the other, coming round abaft of the stern, and so
keeping both sides and transom tightly together. This transom was
found a little distance away from the boat and is 4 feet wide at the
top and 2 feet 5¾ inches deep, there being a projection some 2 feet
aft, beyond the transom, so as to form an overhanging counter.

Along the whole length of the boat, close to the upper edge, holes, 2
inches in diameter, have been pierced at irregular intervals of about
2 feet. It is uncertain what these were intended for. Although there
are no such evidences as a step for the mast, to indicate whether
she was a sailing boat, it is not safe to condemn her as having
merely been propelled by paddles. There are evidences of decks and
seats, and the primitive man would, no doubt, after he had learned to
harness the wind, maintain his mast in position perhaps by thongs to
the seat or by means of the decking. It has even been thought that
the fragment of rounded wood found with the boat and already alluded
to as a probable bowsprit, was a mast. To me this latter supposition
seems more likely than the theory of a bowsprit. It has also been
surmised that the holes running along the boat were either for lacing
to keep the ship’s sides from coming asunder or for receptacles of
pegs to hold washboards in bad weather. Personally, I think the
latter is the more probable, for it was a very early custom. We
have, in a former chapter, mentioned it as being a practice on the
Mediterranean in classical times, and we shall see presently that the
Vikings also used this method for keeping out the spray. It happens
also to be the custom among modern savages.

Evidently during her career of activity this vessel had the
misfortune to spring a leak, for she has been patched, and the work
of the boatbuilder is most interesting to us of to-day. On the
starboard bilge a rift of 12 feet long has been made. To repair this,
wooden patches and moss have been used. The biggest patch is 5 feet
8 inches long and 6½ inches wide in the middle, tapering gradually
to a point at either end, and is of oak. The patch was let into the
rift from the outside until perfectly flush with the outer part
of the boat. On the inner side of the patch, three cleats a foot
long and four inches deep, with a hole in the centre of each, have
been attached. Wooden pins were passed through these holes, so that
pressing firmly against the solid wood on either side of the rift,
they kept the repair in position. Besides this, holes three-eighths
of an inch in diameter were made along the outer edges of the patch,
corresponding holes being also made in the fabric of the boat by
means of which the patch could be sewn to the ship with thongs. This
custom, it seems to me, would have survived in the most natural
manner from the time when the shipbuilder sewed the seams of his skin
boat. Finally, all holes and crannies were caulked with moss. Mr.
Cary-Elwes has carefully preserved a small portion of this lacing
material, which appears to be of some animal substance, and probably
twisted sinews. He has also taken some of this caulking moss from
the boat and finds that it is of two kinds, both of which grow on
sandy soils in woods, and are now largely used in the manufacture of
moss-baskets and artificial flowers.

The important fact must not be lost sight of that while all the
repairs have been made either by wood pegs or thongs, not a trace of
metal was found in the fabric of the boat. This coincides with the
argument that we have been proceeding on, viz., that such ships as
these belong not to the age of metals but to that of stone. And, as
if to convince those who scoff at the possibility of being able to
fell trees—and oak trees especially—by means of stone implements,
Mr. Cary-Elwes refers to the interesting fact that the Australian
aborigines, a type of humanity as low and primitive as one could
wish to find, had all their tools of agriculture, war and forestry,
made of stone or wood, iron being unknown to them; yet indeed they
knew how to fell the giants of the forest, such a tree as the Jarrah
red gum, now used for paving London streets, being every bit as hard
as our oak. “Within quite recent times,” adds the same author, “the
inhabitants of the South Sea Islands worked exclusively with stone
implements. I came across a good collection of these old time weapons
in New Zealand, and what is more to the point here, sundry canoes
and boats hollowed by their means. My father, who was with me, and
who is a member of the Society of Antiquaries, and not unlearned in
these matters, pointed out to me not only the similarity that existed
between these stone weapons and the prehistoric adzes and axes of the
stone age, but also the interesting fact that the canoes hollowed
out by fire or stone tools were as cleanly cut and as cleverly
wrought as the old Brigg boat.” The same writer, from the evidence of
the geological strata where she was found, concludes that the age of
the Brigg boat must be between 2600 and 3000 years, which would bring
the date to between 1100 and 700 B.C.

In addition to the Brigg boat other dug-outs have been found in
various parts of our country. In 1833 one was discovered near the
river Arun in Sussex. Her length was 35 feet, breadth 4 feet, depth 2
feet. Her sides and bottom were between 4 and 5 inches thick. There
are also other similarities to the Brigg boat. In 1863 a smaller, but
similar boat, 8 feet 2 inches by 1 foot 9 inches, was also unearthed.
She had washboards like those we have attributed to the Brigg boat.
Another craft a foot smaller still was found near Dumfries in 1736,
containing a paddle. In 1822 near the Rother in Kent an immense ship
of this class measuring 63 feet long, and 5 feet broad was unearthed
also. It is interesting to remark that it was caulked with moss in
the manner already described. On the south bank of the Clyde another
of these craft was found having an upright groove in the stern
similar to that in which the sternboard of the Brigg boat was fixed.
There is also a twenty-five footer in the Museum at York.

This Brigg Boat, and the Valdermoor one, probably belong to the class
ascribed by Tacitus[29] in 70 A.D. to the Batavians and Frisians.
Some have also thought that it was in such boats as these that the
Romans crossed from Gaul to Britain. At any rate there can be no
doubt that boats of this kind were to be found at this time still
existing in Britain and along the shore washed by the English Channel
and North Sea.

In addition to those dug-outs already enumerated, a similar craft was
found in 1876 in Loch Arthur, about six miles west of Dumfries. She
is 42 feet long and like all the others is hollowed out of oak. Her
width and other characteristics show her to resemble very closely the
Brigg boat, and accentuate still more the existence of a prevailing
type of craft in Northern Europe during prehistoric times. The prow,
like that of the primitive Koryaks, is shaped after the head of an
animal. Unfortunately not the whole of this relic is preserved, but
at least one third of her, and that the bow end, is to be found in
the Museum of the Antiquarian Society of Edinburgh. More than twenty
canoes of this same class have also been found in the neighbourhood
of Glasgow. Almost all were formed out of single tree-trunks of
oak and afford evidence of having been hollowed out by blunt tools
such as the people of the Stone or Bronze Age would possess. Two
obviously later boats were dug up in 1853 and were found to be of
more elaborate construction, planks having now been introduced. The
prow resembled the beak of an ancient galley, the stern being formed
of a triangular piece of oak. For fastening the planks to the ribs
oak pins and metallic nails had been used. For caulking, wool dipped
in tar had been employed. Boehmer in his exceedingly valuable and
careful paper on “Prehistoric Naval Architecture of the North of
Europe,”[30] to which I am greatly indebted for some important facts,
points out that in the bottom of one of these canoes a hole had
been closed by means of a cork-plug, which Professor Geikie remarks
could only have come from the latitudes of Spain, Southern France,
or Italy. The inference is, of course, that notwithstanding their
island home, even the very early inhabitants of Great Britain were in
communication with distant parts of the Continent.

There can be no doubt that, at any rate among the least progressive
peoples of Northern Europe, this dug-out, monoxylon type of
boat lasted till very late, for an account is given by Velleius
Paterculus, who about the year 5 A.D. served under Tiberius as
prefect of cavalry. He distinctly refers to the Germanic craft
as dug-outs, “cavatum, ut illis mos est, ex materia.” Pliny the
elder speaks of the piratical ships of the Chauci, one of the most
progressive of the coast tribes of Northern Europe, as having visited
the rich provinces of Gallia. These ships were dug-outs and carried
thirty men. This fact is interesting, as being the first time the
Teutons had ventured on the open sea.

During the years 1885 to 1889, while excavations were being made at
the port of Bremen at the mouth of the Weser, as many as seven of
these dug-outs were found in the alluvial land at depths of from
6½ feet to 13 feet below the present level of the surface. They
were made of oak-trunks, and had apparently been fashioned by axes.
They were as usual flat-bottomed, without keels, but with prow cut
obliquely and with holes for the insertion of oars. Of the seven four
were entirely demolished, but of the remaining three the dimensions
were respectively: 35 feet long by 2 feet 6 inches wide; 33 feet 4
inches long by 3 feet 6 inches; 26 feet 7 inches by 3 feet 3 inches.
The height varied from 1 foot 5 inches up to 2 feet 2 inches. Several
specimens of this type are preserved in the municipal museum of
Bremen.

So much, then, for the earliest type of craft. We have seen that the
dug-out in the course of time became strengthened with ribs. The
next stage in the advancement of the prehistoric shipbuilder is to
dispense with the strenuous work which necessitated the hollowing out
of a whole tree trunk of hard oak. The affixing of ribs has given
him an idea. So, utilising the hides of the wild animals which he
has shot whilst hunting, he stretches these over the same framework
that he had used for strengthening his oak-trunk. He is still in
the Stone Age, so nails are not yet invented. The skins have to be
sewn together to fit the framework, and the result is precisely
that of the coracle even now used in Wales and off Connemara.
If the reader should happen never to have seen one of these, a
visit to the Victoria and Albert Museum will quickly clear up any
misunderstanding. Though we have no actual specimens of ancient
skin-ships existing—and indeed we should not expect such a relic—yet
the interesting survival of the boat-building language of that
primitive time is found both in the Norwegian and English language
of to-day. Thus, when you have allowed a ship to lie high and dry in
the summer sun so that the planking warps and daylight can be seen
through, what is the expression you would use to express this? Would
you not remark that she has opened her _seams_? Now “seam” is an
Anglo-Saxon word connoting the joining together of two edges of some
texture by means of a needle. But let us take a further instance.
Do you not constantly hear shipbuilders and designers refer to the
planking that covers a ship’s ribs as her _skin_? Thus we have still
in common use the very words which our sires employed in reference to
the sewn hides of their primitive craft. Indeed, when one considers
that all through history, even until now, shipbuilding has been
an industry apart from ordinary occupations, and that both ships
and seamen are, as we said in our introductory chapter, the most
conservative of all peoples or created things, this survival is not
so unnatural as might seem at first. We could continue to give other
examples in the pertinacity of ancient seafaring expressions, but
that would only be to digress from the immediate subject before us.
We need only make reference to the interesting fact that Cæsar during
his first Spanish campaign in the civil war, when he required some
boats at the banks of the river Sicoris to get across, ordered the
soldiers to make boats of the build that they had learned in former
years from the British use. Thus first the keel was obtained and ribs
were fashioned of light stuff; the rest of the boat’s body being
then woven together of osiers and finally covered with hides.[31]
According to Pliny the Britanni also in the first century of our era
put to sea in wicker vessels done round with a covering of ox hide.
In such vessels they would take a six days’ voyage to the Island of
Mictis, whence the tin came.

We come now to the Bronze and Iron Ages. With the advent of metals
we find a revolution scarcely inferior to that caused by the
discovery of the edged stone. For whereas the latter could cut,
yet its efforts were confined within narrow limitations. It was
capable of felling a tree and of hollowing out its trunk with the
expenditure of considerable labour and tediousness, yet that was
its highest achievement in the department of shipbuilding. But now
that the introduction of metals, of iron and bronze, is made, the
primitive man finds that his sphere of energy is vastly widened.
Instead of hollowing out the tree he cuts it up into planks. Instead
of having to sew the outside together with thongs of hide, he has
metallic nails as fastenings. To the same kind of ribs that framed
his skin-boat, he can now nail down planks of oak and fir. He has
a lighter and more easily propelled boat than the dug-out, and a
stronger and more seaworthy ship than that made of stretched skins,
although it is only fair to observe that the hide-boat was capable of
far more than one would suppose. Mr. Jochelson in the account of the
Jesup Expedition already referred to, relates his experience of being
taken for a sail in one of the skin-boats of the Koryak. He was
delighted by the endurance which the skins (of seal) exhibited. Not
the least remarkable feature was the fact that the skin was capable
of sustaining enormous weights without bursting. But in Europe our
ancestors must have been glad to be able to discard the hide for that
of wood, since the wear and tear in beaching on rock, pebble, or
snag, exposed them to instant uselessness.

Although shipbuilding proper comes with the Metallic Age, we must
not assume that the change was made universally or at once. The
transition would be made rapidly or but slowly in proportion as the
tribe or nation were enthusiastically maritime or otherwise. In some
parts of Europe the skin-boat or even the dug-out would be in use,
while other shores were seeing built vessels of planks and ribs. The
first historic account that we possess of these more modern vessels
is to be found in Cæsar’s account of the Naval Campaign against the
Veneti in the year 54 B.C. From this narrative we learn that the
ships of the Veneti were somewhat flatter than those of the Romans,
so that they could more easily encounter the shallows and ebbing of
the tide.[32] The prows, we are told, were raised very high, and the
sterns likewise—“proræ admodum erectæ atque item puppes”—so that
they were suited for the force of the waves and storms which they
had been constructed to sustain. We have, then, here a new design
in naval architecture recorded—the Viking type of ship—although it
had been in existence for a considerable time in the North. The high
prows and sterns would immediately impress those who had come from
the more peaceful waters of Italy. Further it is said that these
ships were built of oak throughout and designed to be enormously
strong. The crossbeams, made of logs a foot thick, were fastened by
iron spikes as thick as a man’s thumb. The anchors were made fast by
iron chains instead of cables, while their sails were made of skin
and dressed leather. These were used because they lacked canvas or
the knowledge to apply it to such a use, or more probably because
they thought canvas would be of too little strength to endure the
tempests of the ocean and violent gales of wind, and that ships of
such great burden could not be managed by them. Perhaps in the use
of hides for sails, we have the parent of the practice of using
tanned sails so common in our fishing fleet and barges. The relative
character of the two kinds of ships Cæsar points out, as we mentioned
earlier in the chapter, was that the Roman fleet excelled in speed
alone and in oarsmanship. Otherwise the ships of the Veneti were,
considering the nature of the place, and the violence of the storms
more suitable and better adapted on their side. Nor could the Roman
ships injure severely the ships of the Veneti by means of their
beaks, so strong were they. And further, so high were these ships
that the Romans found great difficulty in hurling weapons at them.
Whenever a storm arose and the ships of the Veneti ran before the
wind, they could weather it more readily and heave-to safely in
the shallows, and when left by the tide feared nothing from rocks
and shelves, for—“the risk of all such things,” ends the account
pathetically, “was much to be dreaded by our ships.”

Those who are familiar with the terrible tides and treacherous
coast of northern France[33] will readily understand how such able
Viking-like ships as the Veneti possessed, appealed to the Romans
with their fast but unsuitable craft. The difference would be that
between the smart Thames skiff and the tubby though seaworthy
dinghy of a North Sea fishing smack. For we know pretty accurately
now, thanks to the Althiburus mosaics referred to in the previous
chapter, just what Cæsar’s craft were like. Hitherto we have known
them as _naves actuariæ_—that is, light vessels of surpassing speed.
But if the reader will refer back to Fig. 24 he will find that the
_navis actuaria_, whilst propelled both with oars and sail, was
nevertheless not much of a ship to be caught in off the rocks and
narrow channels in a breeze of wind. Although these _actuariæ_ were
neither freight ships (_onerariæ_) nor war-vessels properly speaking,
yet they still possessed rams and were used on this expedition for
a war-like purpose. There cannot be much doubt that the Veneti had
obtained their design and ideas of shipbuilding from the Norsemen
who relentlessly swept down from their colder climes and plundered
and pillaged from one end of the coast of Northern Europe to the
other. As we shall see presently, this design was prevalent for many
years before Cæsar came, and as we shall also see from the following
chapter it had altered but little at the time when William the
Conqueror left the French shores for England in the eleventh century.

In the year 15 A.D. we learn from Tacitus[34] that Germanicus had
built near the mouth of the river Rhine a thousand ships with sharp
bows so as to be able to resist better the waves. Some had flat
bottoms to enable them to take the ground with impunity. Some had
a steering apparatus at both bow and stern in order that thereby
they could be rowed in either direction. Many were decked for the
accommodation of throwing machines. They were equally useful as
rowing and sailing ships, and just as in the mediæval times ships
were built with towering decks for “majesty and terror of the
enemy,” so as early as this period these vessels were imposing as to
their size whilst inspiring confidence to their own soldiery. Good
serviceable ships as they were, yet after defeating the Cherusci
at the mouth of the Ems they were shipwrecked in a storm although
the wind blew from the south. It is only fair to add, however, that
the ancients, especially the Romans, were wont to build their
vessels very quickly[35] and consequently they erred, no doubt, in
constructing them too slightly. The Saxons who, after the death of
Alexander the Great, came to the mouth of the Elbe and subjugated
the Thuringians, and who are said to have possessed the art of
tacking, already referred to, had such light vessels as belonged to
the stone age. They were wonderfully light, made out of willows and
covered with skins, but had a keel of knotty oak; yet these daring
navigators, without compass or chart, and with but a feeble knowledge
of the stars, managed to find their way to the Orkneys.

We pass now from the English Channel and the Rhine to consider that
land which has given birth to a long line of robust, vigorous ships
and men, who after the Phœnicians are the finest race of seamen that
ever sailed a sea. A little clumsy like their ships the Scandinavians
have always throughout history stood for manliness and strength.
And if we were right when we submitted that a nation’s character
exhibits itself in a most marked degree in its ships, surely of no
people could this remark be made with greater truth than concerning
the inhabitants of that Northern peninsula who, in the early days of
our own country, harassed our forefathers beyond all endurance, but
left behind to us the heritage of a love of the sea.[36] There is in
the Viking ship and its descendants not so much beauty as nobility,
not prettiness but power. The first mention of these Northerners is
by Tacitus[37] who refers to them as the Suiones. (Tacitus died A.D.
108.) As Cæsar was struck by the difference between the Roman ships
and those of the Veneti, so Tacitus remarks that the ships of the
Suiones differ from the Romans’, too. Although these were not sailing
ships—_nec velis ministrantur_—yet they were of the same design as
those which were fitted with mast and sail. Double-ended, they could
easily be beached and in battle could the more rapidly manœuvre ahead
or astern.

[Illustration: FIG. 26. ANCIENT SCANDINAVIAN ROCK-CARVING, SHOWING
VIKING SHIP-FORMS.]

But we have much earlier information than the writings of the Roman
chronicler. We have history written in stone, obvious, illustrative
and imperishable. In many parts of the Scandinavian coast, beginning
as far north as Trondhjem and extending right round to the isle of
Gothland, are to be found many rock sculptures depicting the forms
of both ships and men. A few have also been found in Denmark as
well as on the shores of Lake Ladoga in Russia. These rock-carvings
are really history set forth in picture language, primitive yet
intelligible. In spite of all the hundreds of years that have rolled
by, and the winds and rains that have dashed against them, they
are still quite decipherable. Professor Gustafson in his book on
Norwegian antiquities[38] gives several interesting pictures of
these rock-carvings, and I am able here to reproduce one for the
reader who will no doubt agree that the evidence here afforded is
exceptionally striking. Fig. 26 shows the Viking-like ship beyond all
doubt. Frequently these carvings are represented in groups and it has
been thought that they record naval battles fought in the vicinity,
the several representations of ships denoting fleets. The human
figures perhaps are there as an eternal memorial of their admirals
who perished or distinguished themselves in the fight. There are two
kinds of craft in these carvings, Magnússon[39] points out. First
there is the ship with the very high stem, and stern, and there is
the other kind of vessel which lacks just these features. The former
appears to have a double keel which makes it look as if the ship were
put on a sledge. There is at the bow end a structure which is most
probably a ram. As to the sledge-like formation below the body of the
ship, I am inclined to think it may have been a removable keel to be
attached to the ship when sailing and so give her flat-bottomed hull
greater stability. In an old-fashioned part of the world, which is
not so very far removed from Norway and which was in earlier times
over-run by the Norsemen, in whose inhabitants to-day the flaxen hair
and blue eyes and the Norwegian name are still to be found—in the
counties of Norfolk and Suffolk—the trading wherries have just such
an arrangement as this. When they have a full cargo on board and come
to a shallow part of the river, they unhook the whole length of keel
which is attached to bow and stern by an iron band, and leave it on
the bank until they return down stream. Until quite recently not much
change has taken place in the craft of this neighbourhood for ages,
and it is quite possible that this double-ended wherry was as much
swayed by Norwegian as by Dutch influence.

On some of these carvings a mast amidships is shown and their date
belongs either to the Stone or the Bronze Age, though more probably
the latter. Professor Montelius discourages the idea that the
Phœnicians established themselves on the Baltic for the reason that
the bronze culture found its way up to the North overland from the
shores of the Mediterranean and especially the Adriatic. But in
spite of this argument these sculptured forms show many points of
resemblance to those of the Phœnicians’ ships as the reader will
not fail to notice. Many northern archæologists think that these
sculptures have been wrought by the hands of foreigners, and Mr.
Magnússon suggests that in that case they may have been the work of
the Veneti. Be that as it may, and let it be disputed whether they
belong to the year 1500 B.C. or as late as 50 B.C., whether they were
carved by the Vikings or the enemies of the Vikings, there they are
still to be seen, admittedly of great antiquity and corresponding to
the description of the ships of the Suiones as given by Tacitus.

But long before this latter date the Suiones must have been
afloat. They could not suddenly have become owners of a mighty
fleet—_classibus valent_. The very prefix “Nor” which is so common
in this region—in the words “Norge,” “Nordheimsund,” “Norse,” to
give but the first instances that come to one’s mind—signifies ship.
It is the same stem that is found in the Greek ναυς and the Latin
_navis_. In the Irish language _noe_ also means ship and is found
in the oldest tractates of the ancient laws of Ireland. We have
already mentioned the important fact that Pytheas of Marseilles led
an expedition in the fourth century B.C. by sea to Norway in the
interests of the commercial community of Marseilles. This rather goes
to show that the Gauls and Scandinavians had met on trading terms
before and that one or both of the parties had journeyed to each
other’s shore previously.

We know that the Norsemen sailed in early times frequently along
the Eastern shores of the Baltic. We know that they voyaged to
Denmark, Jutland, Germany and Russia, for they have left behind them
unmistakable relics. For just as we are indebted to the funeral
customs of the Egyptians for so much important knowledge of their
ships, so to the burial rites of these hardy Northerners we owe a
great debt of thanks for information as to their vessels. There were
three kinds of burials adopted by the Norsemen. First, and this
is the one we wish to draw immediate attention to, there was the
custom of cremating the deceased Viking. His ashes, together with
his personal property, were buried on land in a boat-shaped grave.
The outlines of long, narrow, pointed shapes formed by a single line
of stones in the countries just mentioned indicate the ship-shape
resting places of these men who were so faithful to their vessels,
who revered them so highly for having carried them during their lives
safely across the turbulent sea, that even in death they desired not
to be separated from them. Thus on land the very design of the stones
was after the lines of that which is the noblest and most beautiful
of all the creations of man.[40]

But there were two other modes of burial, each in its own way
magnificently impressive and in keeping with the vigorous character
of the Viking spirit. Of these two the first consisted in placing the
body of the deceased in his own ship, then, setting the whole thing
ablaze, the ship and its owner were carried out to sea a red, glaring
mass, flaming up against the dark background of the horizon. This
kind of obsequies, magnificently as it appeals to our imagination
with its suggestion of colour, of grandeur and solemnity, has been
inimical to the pursuit of historical knowledge. But even in spite of
this, remains of unburned ships have been found among both the outer
and inner shores of Trondhjem Fjord.[41]

[Illustration: FIG. 27. VIKING SHIP-FORM GRAVE.]

But it is the third kind of burial that tells us as much about the
Viking ship as the Brigg discovery taught us about the primitive
dug-out. For instead of sending them out to sea there was also
the custom of dragging the huge ship ashore, and placing the
distinguished seaman’s body in the bow, a sepulchral chamber (clearly
shown in Fig. 28) of wood was erected above. Together with his
horse, his dogs, his weapons and other belongings he was left to
sleep in peace. Finally over the whole boat a huge mound was raised
towering to a great height, and the proceedings were completed. Now,
within recent years some of these mounds have been excavated with
results of remarkable historic value. Ever since the beginning of the
nineteenth century the Norwegians have taken a real interest in their
national antiquities, and these ancient craft have been treated with
the care and reverence to which they have every right. But besides
Norway these ships have been found elsewhere. Even in England relics
of a Viking ship 48 feet long, 9 feet 9 inches wide, and 4 feet
high were found near Snape in Suffolk during the year 1862. Viking
remains have also been discovered in the Orkneys. In 1875 an enormous
specimen was found at Botley, a charming little place up the river
Hamble which flows out into Southampton Water opposite Calshot.
This was probably a Danish ship and a relic of one of her nation’s
incursions against our shores. She has been thought to belong to the
year A.D. 871 when the Danes invaded Wessex. At any rate she was
in length 130 feet while her upright timbers measured 14 feet 10
inches. The caulking was found to be of ferns and moss and indeed the
impression of the leaves of the former was still visibly outlined on
the wood. The timber was oak as far as could be discerned, and bore
evidences of having been burned. Nowadays there is not enough water
at Botley to float such a ship, but at high tide, and allowing for
the silting up of the river it would have been as snug a place as
ever could be found along the south coast, after the Vikings were
wearied with fighting and the buffeting of the waves.

Of the other Viking ships discovered we shall give to each for
convenience the name of the district where she was found. The Nydam
ship was discovered in October, 1863, in the Nydam Moss to the
north-east of Flensburg in the Duchy of Schleswig. Nydam is in a
dale and was once part of a bay of Als Sound, and in former times
was navigable. Systematic diggings were undertaken at the expense
of the Danish Government and afterwards the ship was placed in the
hands of an expert restorer. She is as usual built of oak, her
lines being very similar to the Scotch fishing boats that flourished
on our coasts up to the middle of the nineteenth century, and
resembling the boat well known as a whaler. The rudder was placed on
the starboard about 10 feet from the stern and was about 9½ feet in
length. She is sharp at both ends with high stem and stern posts;
77 feet long, as much as 10 feet 10 inches across her midships, she
was clinker-built of eleven oak planks. The keel is an inch deep
and eight inches thick, being broad at the middle but diminishing
gradually toward the sternpost. The planks were fastened with large
iron nails and caulked, as was the custom, with some woollen stuff
and pitch. She had twenty-eight oars, was flat-bottomed, and her
date has been estimated as about the middle of the third century of
our era. I admit she is not entitled to be called a sailing ship,
but as she will be found to belong so closely to the sailing class
we cannot afford to neglect her. With her was also found another
similar ship but of fir and armed with a ram low down at each end.
Remains of another boat were also discovered with her as well as
bronze brooches, silver clasps, wooden boxes, bone combs, many shield
boards or _pavisses_ (also seen in the Gogstad ship, Fig. 28), 106
iron swords, spear shafts and heads, 36 wooden bows, iron bits still
in the mouths of the skeleton horse-heads, pots, bowls, knives, axes,
clubs, and thirty-four Roman coins, belonging to dates between 69 and
217 A.D.[42] These composed the personal property, already alluded
to, that was always buried with the Viking. Professor Stephens (see
note) was of the opinion that one or more of these three boats had
been scuttled and sunk in order to avoid capture by the enemy, and
goes on to refer to the fact that in the twelfth century the Wends
and Slavs employed the same means when pursued. Their tactics
included dragging the ship ashore, scuttling her and then decamping
and seeking shelter.

The Tune ship was found in Norway, near the town of Frederikstad
in the year 1865. She is of especial interest to us as being the
first specimen of a sailing craft that we have from the North. She
was found under the funeral mound that had been raised over her,
and measured 45½ feet long; her width is supposed to have been 14½
feet, for not the whole of the hull was rescued. Her height from keel
to bulwark has been estimated as about four feet. Clinker-built of
oak, there were found just abaft the mast the unburnt bones of a man
and his horse. From internal evidence this ship has been thought to
belong to the Iron Age, and is obviously a Viking ship.

About the year 1873 the Brosen ship was found near Danzig. She was 57
feet long, 16 feet wide, 5 feet high and pointed at both ends. Her
planking was 1½ inches thick of oak and clinker-built. The caulking
consisted of the hair of elk, bear, or some other wild animal, with
an application of tar. The bottom was flat. In 1890 the Gloppen ship
was found during excavations of a mound on the fjord of that name
near to Bergen. I understand that the remains are preserved in the
Bergen museum.

But far surpassing any of these we have already mentioned is the
great Gogstad ship discovered in the year 1880 near to Sandefjord.
The mound in which she lay was 18 feet above sea-level, and the
prow was placed looking seaward, as if ready for a voyage again.
The condition in which this fine old ship was found is nothing
short of marvellous, and is attributable to the fact that the blue
clay in which she was embedded had preserved her from the air.
The upper part has unfortunately been damaged, owing (thinks Du
Chaillu) to the clay being mixed with sand, and so allowing the air
to penetrate. She is clinker-built, entirely of oak, and caulked
with cow’s hair spun into a sort of cord. Her planking is of oak, 1¾
inches thick, and her length over all is 79 feet 4 inches, beam 16½
feet, and depth 6 feet amidships, but 8½ feet at the extremities.
She weighs about twenty tons, displacing about 959 cubic feet. Her
gunwale above water is amidships 2 feet 11 inches, while at bow and
stern it rises to 6½ feet. Her draught is only 3 feet 7 inches. In
many respects she resembles the Tune ship, but this is indeed a
sailing vessel. There is a step for the mast, and thirty-two oars
were carried—sixteen on either side—the oar-holes being provided
with shutters so as to keep out the sea. Through the courtesy of
the British Consul at Christiania I am enabled here to show two
excellent photographs of the ship as she now lies in the keeping
of the Royal Frederiks University, Christiania. Professor Gabriel
Gustafson has been instrumental in preserving the ship from further
decay, and the reader who desires a complete description of the
Gogstad ship is referred to the latter’s publications concerning
her. It is quite evident from her construction that her builders
possessed the greatest experience and that her designer, whoever he
may have been, thoroughly “understood the art, which was subsequently
lost, to be revived in modern times, of shaping the underwater
portion of the hull so as to reduce the resistance to the passage
of the vessel through the water.”[43] It is the opinion of experts
in naval architecture that for model and workmanship this vessel is
a masterpiece, nor for beauty of lines and symmetrical proportions
could she be surpassed to-day by any man connected with the art of
designing or building ships.

As rebutting the statement of those who would limit the possibilities
of these early ships to short voyages, it may not be out of place to
mention that at the end of the nineteenth century an exact replica
of this Gogstad ship was built, and sailed across the Atlantic on
her own bottom. She proved to be a capital sea-boat and was for some
time a source of great attraction at the Chicago exhibition. From
the various articles of antiquarian interest that were found in
the Gogstad ship, as well as from the style of carving with which
the vessel was decorated, she has been given the date of somewhere
between the years 700 and 1000 A.D. According to the Sagas such a
ship as this would carry two or more boats propelled by from two to
twelve oars. It is therefore interesting to remember that fragments
of three were found within this mother ship.

[Illustration: FIG. 28. THE GOGSTAD VIKING SHIP.

_Photo. O. Voering, Christiania._]

Fig. 28 shows the _bakbordi_ or port side looking forward from
the stern. The dark triangular erection towards the bows is the
sepulchral chamber in which the old sea-chief was laid. The
unfortunate break in the ship’s side below was evidently the work
of thieves bent on stealing some of the articles of value while the
ship was under the mound. The wooden shields, or pavisado to protect
the oarsmen from the enemy, are much in evidence, and the beautiful
lines of her stern cannot fail to be admired. She has a somewhat
flat floor amidships for greater stability, but the general sweep
of her lines is exquisite. Fig. 29 is even more interesting still
as showing the _stjornbordi_ or starboard side looking forward. The
height of the stern, and the planking, are here clearly discerned:
but especially claiming our attention is the rudder. Here it is now a
fixture, having developed like the Mediterranean ships from a loose
oar at the side. It remained as we see it here until the beginning of
the fourteenth century. In this Gogstad ship the rudder is fixed to
a projection of solid wood, on which it is pivoted. Into the neck of
the rudder a tiller was fitted, which we shall see quite clearly in
the illustration of the seal of Winchelsea in the following chapter.
Even nowadays, while in the modern Scandinavian ships the rudder is
at the end and not at the side of the ship, the steering helm comes
round at the side so as to avoid the high sternpost. Figs. 30 and 31,
which have been sketched from modern Norwegian and Russian ships,
will show not merely how wonderfully has this Viking type prevailed
up till to-day, but how the tiller also has altered only very
slightly. From the stern of the Gogstad ship will be noticed the rope
for pulling up the rudder clear of the water-line (as in St Paul’s
ship) so as to avoid damage when beaching. The steering side was of
course always the starboard, whence this word originates. On this
side the reader will notice the oar-holes mentioned above. The class
to which this Gogstad ship belongs is that of the _skuta_, which was
extensively used in Norway. Such craft as these, though they were not
the biggest of the Viking ships, were nevertheless of great speed.
The actual word _skuta_ indicates “to shoot,” in the sense of passing
speedily. No doubt the familiar Dutch craft _schuyt_ is, at least in
name, derived from this.

[Illustration: FIG. 29. THE GOGSTAD VIKING SHIP.

_Photo. O. Voering, Christiania._]

[Illustration: FIG. 30. NORWEGIAN SHIP.]

Being an open ship it was customary to stretch a tent, called a
_tjald_, over the vessel under which the crew could sleep at night
or shelter in bad weather. This was extended by means of cords and
wooden stretchers. A pair of these latter have been found in the
Gogstad ship with carved figureheads. Very similar to the ships
depicted in the Bayeux tapestry, as we shall presently see, the
Gogstad ship may be regarded as a typical Viking ship, such as we are
accustomed to read of in the literature of the Sagas.

[Illustration: FIG. 31. RUSSIAN SHIP.]

Since this last ship was unearthed there has also been found another
Viking ship, which we shall refer to by the name of Oseberg. This
was discovered on the western side of the Christiania Fjord, in
the district of Vestfold, in the year 1903. Its resting place was,
as usual, deep down in a mound. Happily the work of excavation was
put into scientific hands, and the University of Christiania sent
Professor Gabriel Gustafson to Oseberg to superintend the digging,
which proceeded with great care, and about Christmas, 1904, the whole
ship was fully disclosed. The various pieces were subsequently put
on board a lighter and brought to Christiania, where for the present
at any rate they are stored in the military arsenal of Akershus,
each piece having previously been numbered so as to facilitate
reconstruction. She is of similar dimensions to the Gogstad ship
though a little shorter, but unfortunately she has not been so well
preserved. She has in fact suffered severely by the earth pressing up
from beneath while her own weight, together with that of the mound
above her, have damaged her frames considerably. In ornamentation she
is indeed superior to the Gogstad ship and some detailed carving at
the ends of the ship runs along the gunwale. However the wonderful
collection of personal property found in her has not yet been
surpassed. Although she also had suffered at the hands of thieves,
there were discovered in her:—a loom with a tapestry full of small
pictures resembling those on the Bayeux tapestry, implements of
various kinds, a carriage but no weapons, which latter had probably
been stolen unless we suppose that his wife and not the sea-chief
himself had lain buried here.

With regard to the internal arrangements and fittings of the Viking
ships, the rowing benches were placed at either side of the ship with
a gangway running down the centre. In calm weather the ship was of
course propelled with her oars. In the centre of the gangway, fitted
to the keelson, was placed the step—_stalbr_—for the mast, room being
left so that the mast could conveniently be raised and lowered. Like
those of their ancestors in the Mediterranean, the masts of these
ships were lowered by means of a tackle on the forestay before going
into battle, and also when compelled to resort to oars on meeting
with a head wind. Stays supported the mast from the top to the high
stem-post, as well as shrouds on each side. The halyards passed
through a hole below where the shrouds met. Wooden parrals called
_rakki_ were used to hold the yard to the mast, and these are clearly
seen in old manuscripts of English ships of mediæval times. Braces
came down from the extremities of the yards, leading away aft.

The sail was square and was not practicable for tacking, consequently
it frequently meant waiting for a fair wind or resorting to oars.
We learn from the Sagas that Harald Sigurdson wishing to visit
Constantinople, on his return from Jerusalem, waited with his fleet a
whole month and a half for a side wind to enable him to display his
magnificent sails all glorious with rich velvet. The sail was much
wider at the foot than on the yard, and exceeded the breadth of the
ship. Fig. 30, as we have already remarked, represents a modern and
practically an ancient Scandinavian ship—so little have these craft
altered in the march of time. It will be noticed that she has no
boom. However, the Russian ship in Fig. 31 is correctly shown with
one. That, in fact, is the characterising difference between the
ships of these two peoples. That a tacking-boom or _beiti-ass_ was
in use we know from the Ynglinga Saga. It is said to have reached
so far beyond the gunwale that it could knock a man overboard from
a boat when sailing too close past.[44] This boom was probably used
when wishing to sail fairly close to the wind. Apparently when the
_beiti-ass_ was not in use the braces were called sheets.

The sail itself was made of home-spun until with civilisation came
the cultivation of flax. It was strengthened with a hem of rope, and
was frequently striped. Sometimes it was embroidered or decked with
pall. It is perfectly clear that the Vikings did know of the art of
tacking for we find the word in the Norse which means this—_beita_.
The portions of the sail were sewed together with thread, rings
being attached to the leach in such a place that the sheets could
be conveniently made fast when the vessel had need to shorten sail.
Small ropes or reefing points were also affixed to the sail. We shall
see this quite easily when we come to consider similar ships in the
next chapter. Mention has just been made of Sigurdson’s sails of
velvet. Very highly did the Vikings respect their wings. Gorgeous
sails were worked by their women folk, with cunning designs and
beautiful embroidery, even historic incidents being included. White
sails were sometimes striped with red and with blue, whilst others
of double velvet were made gay with exquisitely woven patterns in
red, purple and gold. As is the case in regard to many other details
this custom of decorating the sail was passed on to the English, and
it is a matter for regret that our seas do not still witness these
picturesque spots of warm colour flitting over the cold green waves.

Very poetic, too, are the phrases in which we find, from the Sagas,
the Norsemen referred to their sail. Thus such happy expressions as
“The Cloak of the Wind,” “The Tapestry of the Masthead,” “The Sheet
spun by Women,” “The Cloth of the Wind,” “The Beard of the Yard,”
“The Fine Shirt of the Tree,” are found. With a shipload of thirty
or fifty lusty Norsemen singing and swinging to their oars, with a
sail above bellowing out its purple and gold over their flaxen heads,
with their red and white striped hull, and their standards and gay
weather-vanes waving at her extremities—what a feast of colour, what
a sight for mortals she must have made as she came sliding down the
billows towards the unprotected yellow shore!

There were three distinct classes of ships possessed by these
Northerners. Firstly, the warships, including the Dragon type, so
called from the figurehead at her stem; the _Snekkja_, named after
the Long Serpent or Snake ship; the _Skuta_ or swift, “shooting”
ship, to which the Gogstad and the Nydam craft belong, the _Buza_
resembling the _Skuta_; and finally the longship, or, to give her the
native word, _langskip_. But far and away the largest of this class
was the Dragon, whilst the most celebrated for beauty of design was
the not inaptly named “Long Serpent.” Indeed, right until the twelfth
century this vessel dominated the design of most other ships built
around the North Sea and English Channel.

Secondly there were the ships of burthen, modifications of the
warships: and finally the small boats, also fitted with mast and
sail, which were carried on board the bigger craft.

In almost every case there was but a single row of oarsmen on each
side, protected by the overlapping wooden shields from both arrows
and waves, whilst the name given to the rope surrounding the ship so
as to guard against the shock of ramming was the _viggyrdil_. Whilst
the dragon’s head was on the stem-post and the tail of the dragon
ornamented the stern, the tiller, and, as we know from the Gogstad
ship, the handles of the oars were also decorated. We have a relic of
this custom in the beautifully carved dogs’ heads so often found on
yachts and other craft before iron helms came so much into practice.
With regard to the nomenclatures of these old vessels we find such
figurative terms as “Deer of the Surf,” “Snake of the Sea,” “Lion of
the Waves,” applied to them: but it is not without interest to remark
that not until about the time of the introduction of Christianity
is frequent mention made of the naming of a ship at launching. They
carried with them, on board somewhere, rollers wherewith to beach and
launch their ships. These are referred to in the early accounts of
the Viking burials and launchings.

In building a vessel there were three chief classes of shipwrights
employed. There was the head-smith, the stem-smith, who was
responsible for the construction of her framework, and finally the
strake-smith. Besides these came also the joiners, nail-makers,
blacksmiths and other workmen.

When making a passage every oarsman kept his weapons underneath his
seat in a chest, and when the fight began, the ships—following the
practice of the early Mediterranean galleys—of the aggressor and
the enemy were locked together so that the warfare resembled a land
battle. This custom naturally was handed on to the English, and there
are not wanting in old manuscripts illustrations showing this method
of warfare. The prow had its raised deck and the stern likewise. In
between, but considerably lower, was the maindeck. At the poop, in
his historical position, stood the commander. Here, too, immediately
below him was the ship’s arsenal for whenever fresh arms had to be
served out. Each ship had five compartments, two being in the stern
as just described—the commander’s room called the lofting, and the
fore-room used for the next in rank as well as for the arms. We
have also mentioned the central space of the ship where the mast
and rowers were placed. And forward beyond that were quartered the
important men who were responsible for defending the stem and who
also bore the standard, this bow section being divided into two
sections. One can readily understand how essential it was that only
picked men should be in this part, for when once the bow end had been
stormed, it would be with difficulty that the enemy, coming aboard,
could be repelled from the rest of the ship.

As to the navigating methods of the Vikings, although they understood
the cardinal points of north, south, east, and west long before
the loadstone was invented, yet their voyages mostly consisted of
coasting from shore to shore like the ancient Greeks. But as to how
they were able to make such long voyages as to Iceland, and thence
across to what are now the New England states of America without
compass or sextant, I offer no explanation, beyond attributing
success to that wonderful additional sense and intuition which seamen
possess and which is, we find all round our coasts, developed in a
high degree in fishermen unlettered and untutored. Of course they
had the rising and setting of the sun to enable them to distinguish
east from west, and the stars, too, would be for their assistance,
but with such slender aids to navigation and in spite of being blown
off their course as such shallow ships must frequently have been,
they very rarely got wrong in their bearings. But perhaps we ought to
admit that usually the Vikings were wise enough not to fight against
nature wantonly; for they confined their sailing seasons, following
the example again of the Mediterraneans, to spring and summer.
Except when they were in some country too far distant, the Vikings
always returned home about the autumnal equinox and “brought their
ships to the roller.”

Because the Vikings coasted as a rule instead of making a passage
across the Ocean, they were frequently able to go ashore at nights
to sleep. But whether they slept ashore or afloat each man turned-in
in a leather sleeping-bag. Under that awning and on board such able
ships the possibilities of comfort were perhaps not so limited as
one might imagine at first. The cooking could only be done on land,
so this was an additional reason for hugging the shore. In fact a
municipal law of Bergen in the year 1276 assumed this, for it enacts
that the mate shall, whenever the ship lies at anchor in harbour,
cause the crew to be put on shore and brought back on board once a
day: but the cook is to be allowed ashore three times—once to take in
water and twice to take in food. Bronze cooking vessels belonging to
the ships have also been found.

Thus we conclude our investigation of these eternally fascinating
sailing ships of the land of pines and fjords, of glacier and keen
biting air. We leave them with reluctance, but our regret is tempered
with the knowledge that henceforth wherever we discuss the sailing
ships of our English nation, we shall know that either obvious or
concealed there is the Viking influence lurking in her design, her
manner of construction or her sail and rigging.




CHAPTER V.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SAILING SHIP FROM THE EIGHTH CENTURY TO THE
YEAR 1485.


It is the custom of some writers concerning mediæval ships to deplore
the existing information as being too scanty to afford us any
adequate idea as to vessels that sailed the seas during the first
half of the middle age. For myself I think that such a statement
cannot be maintained.

The evidence on which we are able to construct afresh in our minds
the ships of this period, is scarcely as slender as has been
supposed, though not unnaturally we must make allowances for obvious
inaccuracies, for exaggerations, and for ignorance. But, even when
we have done this we shall find the sources of information far from
shallow. I have used as the basis for this chapter, the evidence of
mediæval seals, both English and Continental: England, Scotland,
France, Spain and Flanders all affording interesting details of
ships by this means. I have gone carefully through old coins, and
though representations of ships thereon depicted have necessarily
had to suffer through the limitations imposed on the artist by the
size and shape of the coin, yet this evidence used collaterally
with the rest, goes a long way towards completing the picture we are
endeavouring to paint.

During the eleventh century, certain merchants from Bari on the
Adriatic made an expedition to Lycia and brought back the remains
of St. Nicholas, Archbishop of Myra, who had lived and suffered
persecution in the fourth century under Diocletian. Thence grew up
a wide-spread cult of this saint. Not only did he become patron
saint of Russia, but of all sailormen throughout Christendom. In
ancient pictures we sometimes see a ship caught in a terrible storm
with sails and gear carried away, Boreas or his colleague, raising
his head above the waters, blowing with inflated cheeks at the
helpless ship, while above the picture, St. Nicholas appearing in
the clouds, comes to the aid of the skipper seen praying on the poop
for deliverance from the horrible seas. In England this cult was not
wanting either. There are between three and four hundred churches
in our land dedicated in St. Nicholas’ honour, and the reader as he
journeys along the coast, will frequently find that in an old seaport
the parish church bears this dedication. We need not go too far
into this matter, but the famous parish church of that very ancient
seaport of Great Yarmouth (whose seamen used to have goodly quarrels
with the men of the Cinque Ports, and who, long prior to the coming
of William the Conqueror, were busy with the herring fishery), and
also of Brighton, are notable instances of this devotion to the
sailor’s saint. The font of the Brighton church and of Winchester
Cathedral—although the design in each case is conventionalised—cannot
fail to assist us. The date of the former belongs to somewhere
between the years 1050 and 1075: as to the latter, Dean Furneaux
informs me that the date is about 1180.

Mediæval manuscripts both English and foreign have happily
preserved to us not merely actual facts, but exquisitely coloured
illustrations of ships. We see the vessels in every conceivable
way—in course of construction, ashore, afloat, with sails spread,
with sails stowed. We see them on rivers and seas, embarking and
disembarking. We see them in peace and in war, bound for the
Crusades, or ramming each other, grappling, hurling darts and arrows
from their elevated fore-castles and stern-castles, or casting
destruction down on to one another’s decks from the fighting top
above.

We have, too, some slight evidence in contemporary stained glass,
which by reason of the demands of an exceptionally conventionalised
art must be regarded with caution and only to confirm other evidence.
We have the clear and valuable evidence of certain mosaics in St.
Mark’s Venice, which help us more than a little with regard to
the fourteenth century, and, few though they be as we remarked
in Chapter I., there are some artists whose pictures of ships in
mediæval times can be relied upon, after making certain allowances
already indicated. In this class we may include especially Carpaccio,
Giorgione and Memling. The more artistic the mode of expressing these
ships becomes, however, so much the more prone to inaccuracy does the
evidence incline, and to this category belong the tapestries, models
in precious metals, paintings on china and earthenware and tiles. In
most cases the distortion of truth has been in respect of length,
breadth, and height.

When we remember how thoroughly the Vikings harassed the shores of
France and England sailing up the Seine and the rivers and creeks
of our own land, committing piracy on the sea and pillage ashore,
and finally settling down and conquering the territory, it is not to
be wondered that their sway in naval architecture and construction
should have been universal in northern Europe. We have in the
previous chapter already dealt with the primitive craft of early
Britain, and it is generally supposed that the ships which were
sent from this country to assist the Veneti against Cæsar had by
this time become wooden and not skin-ships. With the Roman invasion
of Britain would come the introduction of Roman craft, and there
can be little doubt that the Deal “galley” of to-day, which is the
characteristic ship of that part of England which was so frequently
the landing-place for visitors from Gaul, is a relic, much modified,
from the Roman times. After the withdrawal of the Roman influence
from these shores, the Saxons and Angles coming in their double-ended
Viking craft quickly banished almost all the customs that the Britons
had learned under the Romans. And having effected this complete
transformation the Saxons settled down and practically forsook the
sea and shipbuilding.

But now from the year 787 until the coming of William the Conqueror
our forefathers were constantly being invaded by the Northmen in
the kind of ships that we discussed in the last chapter. But before
the end of the ninth century Alfred succeeded to the throne after
the country had been ravaged and despoiled by these raiders along
the north-east coast as far west as Southampton Water. Acting on
that blessed maxim which alone preserves our country to-day, that
he who would be secure on land must first be supreme on sea, he set
himself the task of improving on the Viking ships. This he carried
out by making his longships—so the Saxon Chronicles inform us—twice
as long as the Danish, and swifter, steadier and with more freeboard
than any war vessels that had hitherto been seen in England. Nor
did he neglect such important details as the seasoning of the
timber. But to show how utterly lacking his subjects were in all
knowledge of seamanship, his oarsmen—some of his ships carrying as
many as sixty—were all hired pirates from the seafaring district
of Friesland. Still, for all that, he succeeded in his object and
defeated the cruel foe.

Hakluyt quotes from one Octher, who voyaging to “the Northeast parts
beyond Norway reported by himselfe unto Alfred the famous king of
England, about the yere 890” that he “tooke his voyage directly North
along the coast, having upon his steereboard alwayes the desert land
and upon the leereboard the maine Ocean: and continued his course
for the space of 3 dayes. In which space he was come as far towards
the North, as commonly the whale hunters use to travell.”... “The
principall purpose of his traveile this way, was to encrease the
knowledge and discoverie of these coasts and countreyes, for the more
commoditie of fishing of horse-whales, which have in their teeth
bones of great price and excellencie: whereof he brought some at
his returne unto the king. Their skinnes are also very good to make
cables for shippes, and so used.” We see, therefore, that if the
Saxons had sunk in maritime pursuits this Octher from “Helgoland” was
one of a class in the northernmost parts of Europe that was wont to
sail far across the seas. From the same traveller we learn that it
was evidently at this time the custom for a ship on a passage and not
making port before to “lay still by the night.”

Edgar, too, who reigned from 959 to 975, took a keen interest in
his navy. In fact, I would much rather call him the first of our
yachtsmen than bestow the title on Charles II. as is customary. For
“this peaceable king Edgar,” says Hakluyt, “(as by ancient Recordes
may appeare) his Sommer progresses and yerely chiefe pastimes were,
the sailing round about this whole Isle of Albion, garded with his
grand navie of 4000 saile at the least, parted into 4 equall parts of
petie Navies, eche one being of 1000 ships, for so it is anciently
recorded.” From the same source we learn that the number was 4800,
although it has been also estimated at 3600. One thousand two hundred
were kept on the east coast (“in plaga Angliæ Orientali”), and
similar numbers to the west, the south and the north respectively,
for the defence of his kingdom. Under Edgar’s rule every three
“hundreds” (probably only of those along the coast-line), were
compelled to furnish a ship. Nor must we suppose that the mercantile
marine was entirely at a standstill, for there is frequent mention of
the English fleets after the time of Athelstan, and whilst the men of
Kent were busily engaged in the herring fishery, trade was regularly
being carried on with France and Flanders. Under the reign of Edward
the Confessor the merchant navy grew very greatly.

The Anglo-Saxon ships of the eleventh century were less of the
Gogstad or _skuta_ type, than of that bigger class to which the
“Long Serpent” or _snekja_ belongs. We do know from a certain
Scandinavian Edda what the Viking ships of about the year 1000 were
like in dimensions. We learn that the “Long Serpent” was 117 feet
long, and carried as many as 600 men aboard. She was decked after
the manner described in the last chapter, and had the five cabins
already mentioned. As in the Mediterranean the ships of burthen
developed from the ships of war, so in the Anglo-Saxon times the
merchantman differed from the battleship only in being more beamy,
and consequently not quite so fast as the longships.

As to the Scandinavians, they did not confine their activities to
fighting. Their fleets voyaged as far away as the Levant in the south
and Iceland in the north, and further still to Greenland. It is
from the colony of Iceland that they are said to have sailed across
to the New England States in North America. As to their sails at
this period, there is a Scandinavian coin of the ninth century of
our era[45] which shows that the usual lines of a Viking ship were
continued, with high poop and bow. The mast is shown supported by
three backstays and one forestay, whilst pavisses of shields hang
round as in the Gogstad ship. The sail is particularly interesting,
as it much resembles that of the Mediterranean boats found on the
Althiburus mosaics, the surface giving the appearance of net-work.
This is no doubt the joining of the stripes of coloured material
plus the rows of reef-points. In addition to the different classes
of ships enunciated in the previous chapter, there were also during
Anglo-Saxon times vessels called “ceols.” These came from Saxony,
and it is not without interest to remark that the same word “keel”
is still given to those somewhat beamy ships, carrying one huge
Viking-like square sail, that to-day are seen navigating the canal
that connects South Yorkshire with the same river Humber up which the
Saxons sailed.

We come now to the year 1066, when William setting forth from St.
Valery-sur-Somme on the evening of September 27, with a fair wind,
disembarked before midday on the following morning. Before starting
there was trouble with the reluctant crews, and even when lying at
anchor off St. Valery several ships foundered. Happily details of
William’s ships are preserved to us by the Bayeux tapestry, which
is supposed to have been worked by his consort, Queen Matilda. From
certain variations between this interesting, painstaking work and
contemporary records we know that it is not absolutely correct.
Nor, indeed, should we have expected otherwise from the work of
imaginative ladies unlearned in maritime matters. But having made due
allowance for that, the Bayeux tapestry taken in conjunction with
the other evidence is most valuable. The photographs which are here
reproduced have been taken from the copy of this tapestry in the
South Kensington Museum.

[Illustration: FIG. 32. HAROLD’S SHIPS.

_From the Bayeux Tapestry._]

In Fig. 32 we see the striped ships of Harold. To the left of the
picture the ship is being “quanted” off from the shore in the manner
we saw adopted by the Greeks. Two men are wading out to her; while on
board one of the crew, having just got the anchor up, is keeping a
look-out. Three others are ready to row as soon as in deep water,
while another sailor is stepping the mast. The ship next to her has a
backstay and forestay as well as shrouds. Behind her she tows a small
rowing boat for going ashore. Some excitement appears to be going on
aboard her judging by the man forward of the mast who is shouting
to the helmsman—possibly informing him that they are getting into
shoal-water, for the man in the bows is seen to be sounding with a
pole. Notice that a part of the crew has collected aft, the sheets
having been eased. In the next ship it is clearly shown that these
sailors have come to the stern in order to put their weight on to
the shrouds so that the mast may be lowered away gently. The sail
and mast will be seen to be partially lowered, a look-out man being
still up the latter, and the man forward is about to drop the anchor
overboard. The ships, as we have already seen was the Viking custom,
are striped as to their hulls. The present writer has seen a modern
Scandinavian boat of this type though smaller with stripes of black
and yellow. The pavisses are seen in both ships, being apparently
coloured alternately. The sail, too, is striped in accordance with
the prevailing custom. The shield-like forms hanging down over the
stern outside may probably be the North European equivalent of the
aphlaston as a protection against ramming. The decoration of a
dragon’s head on stem and stern will be easily seen.

In Fig. 33 we see another ship of this kind, with rudder still
affixed to the starboard, and tiller. We see also that William’s men,
having been commanded to build ships specially for the purpose of
sailing across the Channel, are felling trees. They are seen to be
stripping off the bark and planing the wood, whilst other shipwrights
are engaged in putting the craft together. Very interesting is the
mode of launching shown here. A line attached to the bows is taken
through a ring on a stake, and five men haul away on that. Excepting
that nowadays the ship would also be put upon a cradle and a capstan
or tackle would be used, the same method is used for hauling ashore.
Finally, in the same picture also we see the weapons and armour
and wine being carried down to the ships (see Fig. 34). It is an
historical fact that this wine played no small part in urging the
unwilling men to embark on this expedition.

Touching the size of the Norman ships, they did not exceed thirty
tons burthen, and as we have seen from the above illustration they
were put together on the beach. We have seen, too, that the mast was
lowered _forward_, not aft, and with the sail and yard fixed to the
mast. This practice is confirmed by an illustration shown in an old
manuscript, in which the sailors have gone aft for the purpose of
either raising or lowering the mast. Hanging on to the stays they
are even standing right out on the top of the stern-post. The yard
is clearly seen from these illustrations to have been kept fixed to
the mast and not lowered separately, so that to furl the sail when
the mast was not taken down the sailors climbed the rigging and tied
the sail to the yard. In the Brighton—or as this old fishing village
was then called, Brighthelmston—font this is shown quite clearly, as
also is a figure holding a tiller, which is correctly shown to be on
the starboard side. The high bows and stern are typical of the Viking
type, while the construction appears to be clinker. As we shall see
from seals and other illustrations while we go down through time this
may be regarded as the characteristic ship of Northern Europe until
the end of the fifteenth century, although the tendency was gradually
to get away from the “longship” idea and to develop into a crescent
form. In the Winchester font which is about a hundred years later
than the Brighton one, this newer shape is most noticeable. Both
fonts refer to a scene in the life of St. Nicholas.

[Illustration: FIG. 33. WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR’S SHIPS.

_From the Bayeux Tapestry._]

At the masthead of the ships of this period, the chief ship of the
fleet carried a vane or flag. The Bayeux tapestry also shows the
_Mora_, William’s flagship. The truck is surmounted by a cross,
and there appears to be a lantern immediately below of somewhat
similar appearance to that on the Bœotian ship in Fig. 11. We do
not know to what exact knowledge of seamanship the crews of William
the Conqueror had attained,[46] but they would, at least some of
them, have crossed many times between the two countries before in
connection with trade, and they would have been able to acquire by
experience and observation, the necessary knowledge of the strong
channel tides which, although the coast-line between Pevensey to
the eastward has altered since the eleventh century, probably were
not much different from what they are to-day. They would have an
excellent mark in Beachy Head whereby to make a good land-fall, and
a sandy beach further to the eastward on which to disembark in the
bay, nicely sheltered from westerly winds. William, having once
landed in this country and vanquished Harold, did not neglect the
care of the navy. By 1071, or roughly the date when the font was
being placed in Brighton church just a few miles to the westward,
there was a fleet in being. Trade, too, between France and England
would now be even less fettered than before, and this would naturally
make for an increase in the merchant shipping. Nevertheless the
crews of William’s fleet would be more Norman than English. Nor was
shipbuilding neglected in other parts of Great Britain, for Hakluyt
gives a chronicle of the Kings of Man, in which we find that Godredus
Crovan, who gathered together a fleet of ships and sailed to the Isle
of Man, vanquished its people, and subdued Dublin, and “so tamed the
Scots that none of them durst build a ship or a boate with above
three yron nailes in it.”

Under Henry I. the maritime industry prospered much, and the king
collected a squadron of great size. Up to this time it had been the
custom that any cargo cast ashore from a wreck became _ipso facto_
the property of the king. But Henry caused a law to be put into force
that should any one escape from a wreck alive, the ship should not be
treated as lost, and her contents should not have ceased to belong
to her owner. In this reign too, we learn of _La Blanche Nef_, a
fifty-oared vessel that had as many as three hundred souls on board
when she foundered on the rocks off the race of Catteville in the
year 1120.

Portsmouth, even as early as this period, was springing into
importance as a naval port, and under Henry II.’s reign, London and
Bristol, which in after years were to come into such prominence
and to witness so many fine expeditions setting forth to explore
all parts of the unknown world, now became the two chief ports of
England. Ships were gradually getting bigger and bigger, until we
read of one in the year 1170 carrying as many as 400 people. Henry
II. contributed his share in encouraging the progress of shipping by
good naval legislature, for it was he who enacted that no one should
buy or sell any ship that was to be carried away from England.

[Illustration: FIG. 34. LADING ARMS AND WINE.

_From the Bayeux Tapestry._]

In the next reign we reach an important stage in the history of
sailing ships. Richard I. had set his mind on undertaking a Crusade
to the Holy Land, and this expedition had lasting effects on the
design of the ships that subsequently were built. Instead of coasting
to Ireland or France or the Orkneys, or even to Norway, England
now sends her first expedition across the Bay of Biscay to the
South, the beginning of that wonderful series of great voyages of
the English nation which in Elizabethan times made our country so
famous through her enterprising mariners. I have already referred
in our first chapter to the influence that was effected by the
opportunity afforded to English sailor-folk of seeing the ships
of the Mediterranean. The ships of this Sea had developed on two
separate lines. There was first the galley type, which had remained
wonderfully similar to the galley of Greek and Roman times. She was
essentially a rowed vessel, having sails as auxiliaries. In after
times all sorts of adaptations resulted from this, which we shall
see as we proceed through the Elizabethan period. The root of the
word “galley” is found in the various craft designated “galleass,”
“galliot,” and “galleon,” but it was the first of these three that
represented the rowed ship in her largest dimensions. The other two
were sailing ships, although preserving some similarity in name.

The second class of Mediterranean craft consisted of a rounder,
broader type of vessel—the descendant of the classic merchant vessel
as distinct from the “longship.” This in fact has been the general
division in the history of sailing ships through all times. Under
this heading will come the various classes of Mediterranean sailing
_ships_—not galleys—designated respectively “caracks,” “great ships,”
“busses” or “buccas,” “caravels,” “barks,” and “dromons.” If we keep
these two classes distinct in our minds—“galleys” and “ships”—we
shall not get far wrong during the ensuing centuries. Sailors in
all ages have always had an unfortunate habit of mixing the various
classifications of vessels, and we shall see as we proceed to what
inconvenience this has attained.

In the records of the Crusades we find mention made of the larger
and second class of the Mediterranean ships of sail. Near to
Beirut the English espied in the distance a great ship with three
tapering masts, strongly built, painted green and yellow, with 1500
men aboard. On being hailed she pretended at first to belong to
Richard’s colleague in the Crusade, the King of France, whose flag
indeed she was flying, but she was soon discovered to be a Saracen
ship, and after some difficulty was rammed and sunk by the English
Viking-shaped and smaller vessels. In Hakluyt’s account of this
ship she is described as a “carack.” She was probably not very much
different from the caravel shown in Fig. 43. The three tapering
masts which astounded the Englishmen in their one-masted Viking
ships and the tall sides of the carack which gave Richard’s men so
much difficulty in assault from their comparatively small vessels
of low freeboard, would not fail to bring forth changes in English
shipbuilding as soon as internal and external peace was assured
and sufficient technical skill had been acquired. This big ship or
carack class—call it what you will—marks a determined stand in naval
architecture to build real ships as distinct from big boats. From her
evolved the vessels that sailed across the Atlantic with Columbus,
that carried Elizabethan explorers to all points of the compass, that
fought the Armada and the Dutch, and became adapted in time to such
wooden walls as the _Victory_ and others, and which are not radically
dissimilar from the modern full-rigged ships, though made of iron
instead of wood, with steel rigging and a much larger spread of
canvas.

Although the carack class was not rare in the Mediterranean in the
twelfth century, it was some time in making itself felt in English
naval architecture. We must needs wait for another three centuries.
But what seem to have had an almost immediate effect were the castles
on the Mediterranean galleys at bow and stern. These may have come
into use in England during the remaining years of Richard’s or
during John’s reign. I have seen no illustration of either of these
reigns which shows these castellated constructions; but in the reign
of Henry III. in the seal of Sandwich this structure is shown in
the bows, at the stern and at the top of the mast. And we can be
quite sure that unless it were a prevailing type it would not have
figured in the port’s official seal. Fashions moved but slowly in
those days, so that it is not unreasonable to suppose that these
castellated structures had been in use for some years prior to the
date of the seal—the year 1238. At the same time the seal of the
City of Paris, which represents the first seal of its “Merchants of
the Water,” belonging to the year 1210, shows the Viking shape pure
and simple—without any germ of the castle—as were the ships of this
type which accompanied the rest of Richard’s fleet to the South. The
high stem- and stern-post, the clinker-build, the three stays forward
to support the mast, and three aft, seen in the seal, show how
determinedly the Viking type had overrun the north coast of France.
But there is nothing surprising in the French not having adopted the
fighting castles by this date.

Richard having despatched his navy by the “Spanish seas” to meet him
at Marseilles, himself travelled overland, and having waited eight
days in vain at Marseilles, “for his Navie which came not he there
hired 20 Gallies, and ten great barkes to ship over his men, and so
came to Naples” and eventually to Messina in Sicily, where to his
great joy he found his fleet had arrived. After the departure of the
French King from Messina, Richard followed “with 150 great ships and
53 great gallies well manned and appointed.” They were caught in
a strong southerly gale, but only two of his fleet appear to have
foundered. Later on, in the account included in Hakluyt, we find that
the whole fleet that was gathered at the port of Lymszem consisted of
“254 tall shippes, and above threescore galliots.”

[Illustration: FIG. 35. MEDITERRANEAN WARSHIP OF THE THIRTEENTH
CENTURY.]

Fig. 35 represents a Mediterranean warship of the thirteenth century
and well shows how far ahead the Southerners still were of the
North Europeans. Notice especially the sterncastle and forecastle.
The former is open at the sides and differs not very much from the
sterncastle in the clay model shown in Fig. 17. In the forecastle
of the thirteenth-century ship before us will be seen a warrior
standing ready to hurl down spears at the galleys over which his
ship towered so high. The large cage-like fighting-top is used as
well for steadying the unwieldy yard of the mainsail as for purely
war-like purposes. The rope ladders are also seen, and the rig
consists of a large squaresail on the main with a lateen on the
mizzen. The latter, having been for many hundreds of years seen up
and down the Mediterranean, would but naturally find its way into
the rig when a second mast was added. It would be very acceptable
as being far handier than the big squaresail and capable of being
easily stowed in a breeze. When her commander was endeavouring to
sail a tubby old craft like this as close to the wind as she could
get, the help of the lateen mizzen by sending her head up into the
wind would counteract the tendency to fall off from the breeze. I
attach considerable importance to this illustration as it is the
earliest picture I know of giving us anything of a satisfactory idea
of the kind of ships, other than the galley class, that sailed the
Mediterranean during about the time of Richard’s crusade. Perhaps
this is one of those “great ships” already alluded to. At any rate
she belongs to the sailing ship days. The method of stowing her
anchor is clearly shown. Very interesting, too, is the manner of
bending the sails to the yard. No lacing of any kind seems to be
employed, but strips of the sail appear to pass round the yard and
then meet the cloth again on the other side.

This is a Venetian ship, and when we consider that at this time
Venice was the foremost maritime power in the world, it is not
surprising that her vessels subsequently influenced Spain and thence
Northern Europe to a wonderful extent, as soon as the latter nations
had begun to discard the Viking type which had so long been the model
of their shipbuild. This illustration is from the work of one of
Giotto’s pupils.

[Illustration: FIG. 36. A FOURTEENTH-CENTURY DROMON.]

As to the other ships which Richard had with him besides the Viking
type, there were the Mediterranean galleys, somewhat similar to those
shown in Figs. 57 and 58. A “dromon” or “dromond” is also mentioned,
but this word was used very loosely, as for instance the word
“barge” and other examples already given in our own times. Sometimes
“dromon” referred to a vessel of large tonnage, but the reader will
see in Fig. 36 a much smaller ship bearing the same appellation. This
mosaic is taken from the ceiling in St. Mark’s, Venice, and belongs
to the year 1359. The incident depicted is that of bringing St. Mark
to Alexandria from Egiddo. The rig is lateen and the rake of the mast
is about the same as seen in the modern dhow-rigged yacht shown in
Fig. 101. In the dromon St. Mark is at the stern sheltered from the
following sea by a bulwark that would seem to have been super-added
to the hull. Notice, too, that by this time a rudder has been fixed
to the ship at the extreme stern, and that it appears to be worked
by means of a rope leading in through a hole in the gunwale. Of the
crew of two one is holding on to the vang, which comes down from the
peak of the sail, a relic, no doubt, of the brace of the squaresail,
while the man forward has just hoisted up the sail. Nowadays, that
part of the mast seen to project beyond the sail would be cut off in
a dhow-rigged vessel, the yard coming flush with the truck of the
mast.

There was also in the fleet of Mediterranean craft which joined
Richard, a ship of the class called a _buss_, _bucca_, or _buzzo_.
This was a Venetian type of merchant ship, bluff-bowed and highly
useful as a transport. Levi[47] derives the name, not from the
Italian word meaning “stomach,” although she has a hold capable of
stowing away much cargo, but from _buco_ meaning a hole or small,
dark room, into which the cargo was thrown. The various kinds
of galleys are spoken of under the names of gallion, galliot,
galleass—though in course of time a different and distinctive meaning
has been assigned to each of these words—and the _visser_ was a
shallow transport perhaps not differing much from the _hippago_
of the Althiburus mosaic. A “barge” was probably more like one of
those tar-covered “coasters” that one sees loading in every port—in
hull, that is, but with a square-sail and of course no triangular
headsails.[48] Of the Viking class Richard had with him some of
the _esneccas_ or “Long Serpent” type as well as some “Cogs.” The
latter class was also of Scandinavian origin and probably somewhat
bigger than the skuta type. Hakluyt includes a letter sent from our
King Henry III. to Haquinus, King of Norway, granting permission to
Norwegian merchants to come and go freely into English ports. “Wee
will and command all bailifes of Portes,” reads the mandate, “at
which the Cog of Norway (wherein certaine of the king of Norwaie his
souldiers, and certain Merchants of Saxonie are coming for England)
shall touch, that when the fore-said Cog shall chance to arrive at
any of their Havens, they doe permit the said Cog safely to remain
in their said Havens, &c.” Perhaps she was a new type of Viking ship
and, like the “Long Serpent,” gave her name to the class of ships
built after her model.

On a MS. in the possession of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge,
we see a couple of galleys ramming each other with the spur some
distance above the waterline. The largest of Richard’s galleys in the
Mediterranean had thirty oars, and the Viking type of steering paddle
was still used, since the rudder affixed to the farthest end of the
stern had not yet been introduced into ships of North Europe. Masts
and sails were carried as usual. The larger ships of Richard’s fleet
that we have mentioned also carried engines for projecting darts as
well as terrible explosives. The banner under which they fought at
this time was that of St. George. As to the equipment of this first
great English fleet the chief vessels had each three spare steering
paddles, thirteen anchors, thirty oars, two sails, three sets of
all kinds of ropes, and duplicates of all gear except the mast and
boat. There are not wanting plenty of references to the _esnecca_
or “Serpent” class. Thus there is a record of payment “to the men
of the esnecca” (Pipe Roll, 5 Henry II., p. 45. Pipe Roll Socy.);
“paid out to me of the snecca for the Queen’s passage and that of
Henry FitzGerald with the treasure and of Nicholas de Sigillo £30 :
10” (Pipe Roll, 6 Henry III., p. 47); “to the sailors of the snecca
twenty shillings by the king’s writ” (Pipe Roll, 8 Henry II., p. 35).
The ship that was reserved for carrying royalty across from England
to France was always at this period called the “esnecca.”

The resulting effects on England of this crusade were not confined
to her naval architecture. Although it was not the first time
that a North European or even an Englishman had sailed in the
Mediterranean, it was the first instance of a naval expedition on a
large scale setting forth from these shores to the Levant. It gave
our sailors in a smaller way just that experience which the recent
world-cruise of the fleet of the United States from the Atlantic
to the Pacific and back again has obtained for American sailormen.
It made deep-sea sailors of the men who had only been coasters,
and showed them in what directions their ships could be improved
upon. But its effect on the trade of England was to expand it, to
create new sources of imports and fresh outlets for her exports.
England owes a great debt to Richard I., besides, for his attention
to maritime legislature. Hakluyt gives a list of the laws the king
ordained for his navy during this expedition, as, for instance, that
any one who killed another on board ship should be tied to the dead
man and thrown overboard: and that if he killed him on land he should
in like manner be tied “with the partie slaine, and be buried with
him in the earth.” It was from the Levant that Richard brought a roll
of laws regulating maritime affairs, and which, being held in high
honour on the Southern sea, he ordered to be observed in English
waters. Very drastic were these laws of Oleron, framed for the
benefit of the merchant service. Thus if a pilot from ignorance or
otherwise lost the ship entrusted to his navigation and the merchants
thereby sustained damage, the pilot was to make full satisfaction
if he had means, and if he lacked these he was to forfeit his head.
It is interesting to note the care that was taken to prevent ships
fouling each other’s anchors, for it was enacted that all anchors
were to be indicated by buoys. But no modern sailor will read without
a smile the regulation that if a vessel were wind or weather-bound,
the master, when a change in the conditions had occurred, was to
consult his crew, saying to them, “Gentlemen, what think you of this
wind?” and to be guided as to whether he should put to sea by the
opinion of the majority. It is not difficult to imagine what the
verdict of such a consultation would be to-day on a big barque, for
instance, after the men have returned from their carouse ashore, if
the law were still in force. The “gentlemen’s” opinion of the wind
would be something unprintable.

During the reign of John, ships reached a size as big as eighty tons.
Hakluyt contains a reference to the time when Louis invaded England
to aid Archbishop Langton. “Hubert of Borough (then captaine of
Dover) following the opinion of Themistocles in the exposition of the
oracle of the woodden walls, by the aide of the [Cinque] Port townes,
armed fortie tall ships, and meeting with eightie saile of French men
upon the high seas, gave them a most couragious encounter, in which
he tooke some, sunke others, and discomfitted the rest.” Under John
the English navy was considerably improved, and this was the first
of our sovereigns to retain seamen with permanent pay. Instead of
being alternately pirates, fishermen and fighting men of the state,
the sailor became endowed with a higher status. The privileges first
granted to the Cinque Ports by Edward the Confessor, William the
Conqueror and their successors, did much to assist the progress of
the sailing ship; but in addition to the ships supplied to him by
these south coast ports, John had also ships of his own. This reign
is notable, too, as the first instance of our country claiming to be
“The Sovereign of the Seas.”

Nor under Henry III. was this progression in maritime matters
arrested. Every year the size of ships was becoming greater. Thanks
to the Mediterranean influence they were getting away from the Viking
type to a more protected and seaworthy kind. Decks and cabins and
more than one mast were introduced, and in 1228 a vessel that was
sent to Gascony with the king’s effects had expended on her a certain
sum of money “for making a chamber in the said ship to place the
king’s things in.” In 1242 there is a direction for the cabins of
the king and queen to be wainscotted. The seal of Sandwich, one of
the Cinque Ports, of the date of 1238, shows the customary Viking
hull, as usual, clinker-built. But some notable additions have been
made. Both in the bows and stern a raised structure has been added to
enable the men to hurl the same destruction from a height that they
had seen the Mediterraneans operate during the Crusade. The space
underneath the stern-castle was used as a kind of roofed deck-house
or cabin, but open at the sides, and we see one of the barons of
Sandwich sitting in a dignified manner under this shelter, while a
couple of the crew are aloft on the yard, evidently about to unfurl
the sail. At the top of the mast has been placed a fighting-top. A
very thick forestay, two backstays, and four shrouds are shown, but
possibly the two halyards did duty also as backstays. A small rowing
boat is seen carried on board, as well as two more crew.

[Illustration: FIG. 37. SEAL OF WINCHELSEA (END OF THE THIRTEENTH
CENTURY).]

Fig. 37 has been sketched from the seal of Winchelsea in the British
Museum. For detail of information it is pre-eminent: the date is the
end of the thirteenth century. The reader, after making allowances
for the limitations of space and shape imposed on the artist, will
at once remark the similarity of the lines, especially at bow and
stern, between this and the Gogstad ship. The stem- and stern-post
are depicted very high. Forward is seen the forecastle taking its
Gothic curves from the architecture on shore. Above, floats a flag.
Below the stern-castle sits the baron or commander protected by the
roof and arches, whilst over him two trumpeters are pealing forth. We
have seen this trumpeting at the stern also depicted in the ancient
Mediterranean ship coming into harbour (Fig. 22), and the practice
was evidently still a common one in the middle ages when entering
or leaving port so as to give due warning to approaching vessels.
Hakluyt contains a reference to Richard when he had wearied of
waiting at Marseilles and had sailed to Messina. “After that he had
heard that his ships were arrived at Messana in Sicilie, he made the
more speed and so the 23. of September entred Messana with such a
noyse of Trumpets and Shalmes, with such a rout and shew, that it was
to the great wonderment and terror both of the Frenchmen, and of all
other that did heare and behold the sight.”

The rigging, the sail furled to the yard, and the two braces are so
clearly shown as to need no comment. But two other points are of
considerable interest to us. Firstly, notice that the rudder, on the
starboard side, is almost identical with that of the Gogstad ship.
From the hull projects a bracket to support the rudder, while above,
the tiller or _clavus_ fits in at right angles and comes inboard to
the helmsman. Secondly, notice that the two men forward are getting
up the anchor and that the cable leads aft to a winch—probably a
great wooden drum like that found on the Dutch schuyts of to-day—for
the two men in the stern are clearly shown working away with their
handspikes, which would fit into the windlass drum in the manner the
reader will notice any day he likes to take a stroll and look at
the Dutch craft lying off Billingsgate. In a few moments the ship
will be under way, for one of the crew has been sent aloft to unfurl
the sail. The fighting-top is not shown on this seal, but that is
possibly accounted for by the fact that the artist was cramped for
space. Winchelsea, or as Hakluyt speaks of it, “Frigmare Ventus”—and
not inaptly so-called, as those who have been caught in the nasty
chilly squalls off this ancient shore will agree—was one of the
original five Cinque Ports before the others were added, and in
the time of Edward I. had to provide ten ships, though during the
reign of the third Edward this was increased to twenty-one with five
hundred and ninety-six mariners.

[Illustration: FIG. 38. SEAL OF HASTINGS (THIRTEENTH CENTURY).]

Fig. 38 has been drawn from the seal of Hastings in the British
Museum. The date is the thirteenth century, and although no
forecastle is shown, the erection in the stern scarcely requires any
further comment. The high stem and stern are seen again, and what is
of considerable interest, the three rows of reef-points. This seal
depicts an incident in one of the many engagements that took place
about this time along the coast between Beachy Head and the North
Foreland. Both ships, it will be noticed, are sailing, and one has
rammed his enemy and cut his ship down to the water. An unfortunate
warrior is seen swimming in the foreground of the picture. On the
banners at bow and stern of the victorious ship are shown the arms of
the Cinque Ports. All three warriors are seen clad in mail.

The seal of Dover, another of the Cinque Ports, of the date of 1284,
bears out the general characteristics we have been discussing. The
castles at bow, stern and top of mast: the trumpeters—this time at
the bows: the two men getting in the cable: the one man going aloft
to unfurl the sail—these details are all depicted. Both Dover and
Sandwich seals contain a bowsprit after the manner of that seen in
the Roman merchant ship moored alongside the quay in Fig. 21. It is
therefore probable that a small square sail was used occasionally at
this time for tilting the ship’s head off the wind.

[Illustration: FIG. 39. THIRTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLISH SHIP.]

The model by Mr. Frank H. Mason, R.B.A., reproduced in Fig.
39, was in the Franco-British Exhibition and is now in the South
Kensington Museum. It may perhaps assist the reader to obtain a
more living picture of the ships of the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries. The castles will be at once recognised. Frequently the
sail was decorated as shown. The detachable “bonnet,” still used by
the sailors of Scandinavia and Norfolk, can just be seen below the
decoration. The steering oar, or rudder, is attached to the starboard
side, but the reader can just see the handle coming up. The massive
wooden fenders were both to strengthen the ship and for a protection
when going alongside an enemy. Since so frequently the same ship that
was used for fishing or trading was also employed as a battleship or
even pirate, the unwieldy, top-heavy castles were made so as to allow
of them being removed in times of peace. The ship before us probably
represents one of the larger, esnecca type, and the snake’s head
coming inboard from the stern-post is very noticeable.

From the masthead of the commander-in-chief’s ship by day flew a
banner, and by night a lantern hung in order to direct the sailing
of the fleet. The officers of the Cinque Ports were ordered to cut
adrift the banner of a hostile commander in an engagement, so that
the whole of the enemy’s fleet might be thrown into confusion. Before
the close of Henry II.’s reign another crusade was undertaken,
but the ships of the Southern sea seem to have reached to larger
dimensions by now. There is a record of a ship built in Venice for
France in the year 1268. She was 110 feet long, 40 feet broad, and
11½ feet deep in the hold. She had also 6½ feet of head-room on her
main deck. Her crew totalled 110 officers and men, and she was of
about four or five hundred tons burthen.[49] The English ships had
another opportunity of testing their sea-going qualities in the
Mediterranean, for during a storm in the year 1270 the English
squadron was the only part of the allied fleet that escaped without
loss.

During Henry II.’s reign the magnet seems to have been first commonly
used in navigation. From an old MS. in Corpus Christi College
Cambridge we see the derivation of that anchor which is also freely
used by balloons nowadays and which seamen find extremely useful when
dragging for a lost anchor or cable—the grapnel with its several
flukes projecting from a common centre. The MS. mentioned illustrates
a sea-fight, and sailors are seen keeping the enemy’s galley close
alongside by means of one of these anchors or grappling irons. The
other anchors, as will have already been noticed by the reader in
the illustration of the warship by Giotto’s pupil in Fig. 35, were
stockless.

Edward I.’s charter, granted to the Cinque Ports, ordained that each
time the king passed over the sea the Cinque Ports should “rigge up
fiftie and seven ships” every one of which was to be manned with
twenty armed soldiers. These were to be maintained at the ports’ own
cost for fifteen days together. In this charter we come across the
expression, so familiar to us now, “before the mast.” Thus it adds:
“And that they be free of all their owne wines for which they do
travaile of our right prise, that is to say, of one tunne before the
mast, and of another behind the maste.”

[Illustration: FIG. 40. SEAL OF DAM (WEST FLANDERS) (A.D. 1309).]

About the time of Edward I. two-masted ships became more general. One
of the first acts of his reign was to revive the wool trade between
England and Flanders: this necessarily made for the extension and
progression of shipping. Fig. 40 represents the seal of the town of
Dam in West Flanders. The actual date of the seal in the British
Museum, from which this has been drawn, is 1309, or two years after
the death of Edward I. This represents one of the larger or barge
class of ships. The most striking feature is her apparent modernity,
for if we were to remove the fore- and stern-castles and rig her as
a ketch by adding a mizzen-mast and triangular headsails we should
have before us one of those black traders which even the most casual
observer must have looked at many times during his summer holidays by
the sea. She marks a very decided departure now from the Viking type,
but we must remember that she represents only one species of ship.
The prevailing type elsewhere in Northern Europe continued to be a
modification of the Norwegian. The ship before us would be rigged
with the usual single squaresail. Perhaps also she used a smaller
square headsail occasionally, as the bowsprit is present, but the
most important feature of all is the change that has come in the
steering arrangement. Hitherto we have always seen the rudder at the
side; but now we get to that stage where the rudder is placed at the
extreme stern of the ship, where it has remained ever since. Such a
ship as this in the North Sea would be no doubt the counterpart of
the Mediterranean _buzzo_ of the same century. I believe this ship
of Dam (spelt also Damme) to be the earliest illustration of any
North European vessel showing the rudder thus placed, although the
seal of Poole dated 1325 has her rudder also in this position. The
Viking ships of Norway did not adopt this steering method until the
beginning of the fourteenth century also. In England there is an
additional example in a man-of-war built for Edward III. at Lynn,
Norfolk, in 1336. She was named _La Félipe_. It is worth remembering
that it was off Damme that the English fleet in the reign of John
inflicted a severe defeat upon the French.

The ship shown in the Poole seal marks another development in the
fore- and stern-castles, which by now appear to be not so much
superstructures as part of the hull itself. We shall see as we
continue through the ensuing centuries how this “castle” idea
increases. Another point of interest exhibited in the Poole design
is a large anchor hanging from the bows. This now has a stock in the
usual place as distinct from that in the illustration by Giotto’s
pupil. This Dorset craft has some resemblance to the previous Viking
type, but instead of being after the pattern of the “longships” she
shows the tendency towards crescent-shape. As evidence that the pure
Viking influence was still extant in Europe let us take the seal of
San Sebastian, Spain, which is to be seen in the British Museum. The
date is 1335, and it is remarkable that this type should have spread
so far south as the other side of the Bay of Biscay. She has the high
stem and stern with a stern-castle, but not a forecastle. She has
one mast with a streamer, the sail being furled by two men along the
yard as usual. The mariner steers with a rudder to starboard, and
the braces as well as the bowsprit are shown.

In the reign of Edward III. the current gold coin called a noble
showed a ship-design still more crescent-shaped than the Poole seal.
By now the sterncastle has come right down on deck, the rudder hung
on pintles is seen at the extreme stern, and the backstays lead not
into the hull but to the top of the sterncastle. The actual length
on the water-line is much smaller now and the overhang greater. The
date of the noble is 1360. An imitation of this coin, and bearing a
similar ship, was struck by David II. of Scotland in 1357.[50] In
the seal of Boston belonging to the year 1375 the sterncastle is
seen to have come down to the deck, the sheer of the ship coming up,
so to speak, to meet it. The forecastle has also come lower, but
projects away ahead of the vessel. There are three masts and three
fighting-tops, and the shrouds come outside of the hull. Edward III.
admirably continued the example of the kings of England and helped
forward the steady improvement of the navy, while the glorious
victory in the Battle of Sluys, in which the French fleet was utterly
routed, gave the English seamen their opportunity of showing their
superiority.

From the “Black Book of the Admiralty” of the reign of Edward III.
we see that the admiral’s ship carried two lanterns at her masthead
when sailing at night in order that the masters of other ships of
the fleet could see the course being taken by the flagship. The
king’s ship was to be distinguished by three lanterns arranged
triangular-wise. As to the armament of this period, they consisted
of bows and arrows, archers from the fighting-tops and castles at
bow and stern being able by means of their superior height to do
considerable damage. Cannon were introduced in 1338, and before the
close of the fourteenth century guns and gunpowder were becoming
common, but the influence which cannon had on the design of ships we
shall notice presently.

Nor did the enterprising spirit imbued through the Crusades perish.
As early as 1344 an Englishman, of the name of Macham, sailed as far
south as to discover the Island of Madeira, but unfortunately his
lady-love had fallen a victim to sea-sickness during the voyage, and
after going ashore with some of his company, the ship either dragged
her anchor or parted her cable and “with a good winde made saile
away, and the woman died for thought.” However, after building a
chapel over her grave, Macham, according to the account of Antonio
Galvano given in Hakluyt, “ordeined a boat made of one tree (for
there be trees of a great compasse about) and went to sea in it, with
those men that he had, and were left behinde with him, and came upon
the coast of Afrike, without sail or oare.” It was the information
given by Macham and his men that induced the French to voyage thither
and also to discover the Canary Isles.

In 1360 Nicholas of Lynn, “a Franciscan Frier, and an excellent
Mathematician of Oxford,” a good astronomer and experienced in
the use of the astrolabe, “went in companie with others to the
most Northern Islands of the world, and there, leaving his company
together, hee travailed alone, and purposely described all the
Northerne Islands with the indrawing seas.” We get some idea of the
speed of the ships of olden days by the statement made that from
Lynn (Norfolk) to Iceland is not more than a fortnight’s voyage with
an ordinary wind. Reckoning the distance between the two as roughly
a thousand miles this would give the day’s run at about seventy
miles. It was from this same Lynn that sixteen ships and 382 mariners
were contributed to the enormous fleet of English ships which
Edward III. had in 1347, when he besieged Calais. Some idea of the
development that had gone on since Arthur’s time may be obtained when
we recollect that the English ships at Calais numbered 700 and the
mariners over 14,000, without including the assistance of Ireland,
Spain, and other helpers.

We pass over the reign of Richard II. as being anything but
prosperous for the progress of the sailing ship. His successor, Henry
IV., however, entered into commercial treaties with Prussia and the
Hanseatic League, much to the advantage of shipping. Piracy had
become so rampant on the North Sea as to cause merchants to abstain
from sending their goods across from the one country to another. This
Henry did his best to stop. He endeavoured to remove all hindrances
to the herring fishery, and all English merchants were to have full
liberty to arrive with their goods and ships at any port in Prussia.
The list of claims for satisfaction and recompense set forth in
the agreement between Henry IV. and the Hanseatic Towns throws a
light on the ships of the time. Thus we find reference to “a ship
of Newcastle upon Tine called _Godezere_ ... being of the burthen
of two hundred tunnes ... which ship together with the furniture
thereof amounteth unto the value of foure hundred pounds.” Mention is
also made of the _Shipper Berline of Prussia_, belonging to the port
of Hull; of a ship called the Cogge, belonging to William Terry of
Hull, carrying a cargo of both broad and narrow cloth. Another ship
from the same port was called the _Trinitie_; another bore the name
of the _Hawkin Derlin of Dantzik_. Among other acts of piracy, that
perpetrated near Plymouth on “a certaine barge called the _Michael
of Yarmouth_,” is mentioned. Another vessel, braving superstition,
bears the name _Friday_, another which was robbed of her “artillerie,
furniture, and salt fishes,” and herself captured and taken to
Norway, was named the _Margaret_. A similar misfortune had happened
to the _Nicholas_ and also to the _Isabel_. Other unfortunate vessels
included the _Helena_; a certain ship classed as a “crayer,” and
named the _Peter_; and two fishing vessels called respectively the
_Doggership_ and the _Peter of Wiveton_. Another fishing ship also
called the _Dogger_ was robbed of her fish and “furniture,” while she
was at anchor and her crew were fishing near by. Another “crayer” is
mentioned called the _Buss of Zeland_, and still a further one called
the _Busship_. One ship was of 300 tons burthen—this being measured
by tuns of wine—and carried a crew of forty-five.

Other ships of the following reign were the _Jesus_ (1000 tons),
the _Holigost_ (760 tons), the _Trinity Royal_ (540 tons), and the
_Christopher Spayne_ (600 tons). In the navy were also seven caracks,
barges (see Fig. 40), as well as the “ships” that had taken the
place of the Viking galley. The largest caracks were between six and
five hundred tons burthen, the barges a hundred tons, whilst a class
of vessel called “ballingers,”[51] ranged between one hundred and
twenty, and eighty tons. It was during Henry V.’s reign also that,
the Battle of Agincourt having been fought, the king set forth two
years later from Southampton for a fresh invasion of France, having
caused to be built for this purpose ships the like of which was to
be found nowhere, “naves quales non erant in mundo,” as the old
chronicler quoted by Hakluyt expresses it.

“The Libel of English policie, exhorting all England to keepe the
sea,” contains in the following rhyme some references to the vessels
we are considering:

      And if I should conclude all by the King
      Henrie the fift, what was his purposing,
      Whan at Hampton he made the great dromons,
      Which passed other great ships of all the commons:
      The Trinitie, the Grace de Dieu, the Holy Ghost,
      And other moe, which as nowe bee lost....

or again:

      And when Harflew had her siege about,
      There came caracks horrible great and stoute....

The reign of Henry VI., at least as regards shipbuilding, was about
as unsatisfactory as had been that of Richard II., owing to the
scarcity of money consequent on the war with France. Further, the
unhappy Wars of the Roses kept men’s minds too tightly gripped to
allow of them thinking much about commerce or the ships that were to
carry it. But towards the close of Edward IV.’s reign, after peace
had been made between England and France, matters began quickly to
improve, and in the time of Richard III. England was sending her
ships and merchandise to Venice, to Genoa and other Mediterranean
ports.

But let us now go back to trace a little more fully the designs of
the ships according to the illustrations that have survived through
history. Firstly with regard to Southern Europe. The Mediterranean
had still maintained her lead in the designing and building of able,
roomy vessels. Happily we are helped by the work which one or two
Italian painters have left behind them. There is a most interesting
picture by Gentile da Fabriano, representing a ship of the early
fifteenth century. The original which is in the Vatican is called
“The Miracle of St. Nicholas.”[52] She is a fine, strong ship,
with a square stern and rudder fixed to the middle of the latter.
She has two masts as well as a bowsprit, and the hull is somewhat
crescent-shaped. The artist has depicted her scudding before a
terrific storm, which has split the mainsail along the foot where
the bonnet seems to be laced. Evidently the ship has been caught in
one of those sudden squalls not unknown to the Mediterranean, for
otherwise the skipper ought not to have carried on so long without
unlacing the bonnet. At the stern he is seen praying to St. Nicholas
who appears in the clouds coming to his assistance, while amidships
a sailor is seen jettisoning some of the cargo. The forecastle
resembles that of contemporary English ships with a projecting
bowsprit. The mizzen-mast and sail are clearly shown, the latter
being furled to its yard as the ship is running before the wind.
Pulleys are now prominently indicated, whilst a couple of braces are
attached both to the main and mizzen-yard, while the mainsheet leads
right aft to the starboard quarter and comes in through a hole in the
gunwale pretty much in the same way adopted in a square-rigged ship
to-day. Two rope ladders are shown, one at either side, hanging down
over the stern, evidently in order to facilitate getting into the
ship’s boat (seen towing astern) if the ship herself shall founder. A
fighting-top is depicted at her masthead. The picture is altogether
most fascinating and instructive.

Carpaccio, the great Venetian artist, whose period is covered by
the dates 1450-1522, has left behind more pictures containing ships
than any artist of his time. There is in one of his paintings a
striking example of a contemporary Mediterranean warship. She is
shown as having a mainmast with square sail and very small topsail.
Aft she has both a mizzen-mast and bonaventure-mizzen, each carrying
a lateen sail. She is fitted also with a small foresail, spritsail,
and carries eight oars on each side.[53] Like Memling and other
artists, Carpaccio utilises the celebrated story of “The Pilgrimage
of St. Ursula,” for some of his best work. It is, indeed, owing to
this story, necessitating the introduction of ships into the picture,
that we possess much of our knowledge concerning mediæval craft. For
instance, in “The Arrival of the Ambassadors,” in “The Return of the
Ambassadors,” in “The Arrival at Cologne,” and “St. Ursula taking
farewell of her parents,” we have presented many valuable details
bearing on our subject of sailing ships. We see a small open boat in
the first of these pictures. She has a tiller and one large single
lateen sail, coming almost down to the water. In the background we
see the big ship in which the ambassadors have travelled. She has a
high poop, one mast and square mainsail. In the second picture we
see a Mediterranean galley with her enormous sail. She still retains
her name “trireme,” and it is remarkable how generally she continues
to resemble her Roman ancestor. In the last of the four pictures
mentioned above, we see a large ship resembling somewhat the caravel
type.[54]

The most famous of all the works of that delightful Flemish painter
Memling is the reliquary of St. Ursula. Those who saw the wonderful
collection of “Primitives” brought together in Bruges in the year
1902 will recollect the eight exquisite miniatures on the reliquary.
Happily no less than four of these contain representations of the
ships in which St. Ursula and her accompanying maidens journeyed.
The date assigned by Mr. Weale[55] to these paintings is not later
than 1489. In Fig. 41 one of these panels is reproduced. We cannot
regard these Memling pictures of ships as absolutely truthful: some
allowance must be made for the artistic temperament. There is, for
instance, no indication of any braces shown in the illustration. But
Bruges is not far from the sea, and during the fifteenth century it
was the great centre of commercial activity of the prosperous Hanse
towns, and Memling would have plenty of opportunity to study the
details of contemporary craft. It may fairly be assumed that in spite
of a small inaccuracy here and there the general drawing of the ships
is nautically correct. From other pictures and MSS. and stained glass
windows of this time we know that this is so. Looking at the picture
before us we see at once how the Viking lines have been modified. The
fore-castle and stern-castles are seen in their latest form: that
is to say, they have long since passed the time when they were mere
additional structures to the hull of the ship. They have, in fact,
now been absorbed into the general design of the whole vessel. There
is still one mast supported by backstays, shrouds, and forestays,
and there is one large mainsail which furls still to the yard. The
lines of the ship are tubby, but we can easily see the progenitors
of the Dutch craft which went on developing until the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries and there halted for ever after. Notice, too,
that the rudder is in its proper place. Such a ship as this resembles
in many points the one in “The Miracle of St. Nicholas” referred
to above. The length of the Viking ship has given way to breadth.
Roundness has taken the place of straightness: freeboard has added to
her seaworthiness. We shall find this evidence before us confirmed by
a certain mediæval Italian illustration[56] in which a Mediterranean
ship is being tossed mercilessly about by the Wind, who, with
inflated cheeks raises his head above the water and blows vigorously
into the sails. Men are seen tumbling into the sea, the mainmast has
gone by the board, and general confusion reigns. A somewhat similar
kind of ship is also seen in a reproduction from a stained glass
window of this period.[57]

[Illustration: FIG. 41. PANEL OF THE SHRINE OF ST. URSULA, AFTER
MEMLING (1489).]

In a beautiful French manuscript of the fifteenth century similar
ships to those in Memling’s work are shown with considerable
ability.[58] Perhaps these French vessels show the Viking influence
somewhat more certainly, especially in their bows. We are shown in
one illustration a scene of the river Seine at Rouen. A ship with a
sterncastle, now modified rather to a square platform, is seen by the
shore. She appears to be carvel- and not clinker-built; this is a
notable fact. She has shrouds at the sides, a forestay, and also an
additional stay coming forward from the mast to a spot midway between
amidships and the bow. This may have been in the original ship to act
as a further support to the sail or it may only be the product of
the artist’s imagination. If the former it would be analogous to the
lee-runner but placed forward, and must have chafed the sail a good
deal. The latter is furled to the yard in the usual way. We see in
the same MS. ships starting forth bound for the Crusades. They are
fine, bold vessels, broad of beam, with plenty of freeboard, clumsy
but probably good sea-boats. These French craft appear to have a
certain amount of overhang at the bows and some of them carry a large
fighting-top, partly supported by means of a stay coming up from both
bow and stern.

[Illustration: FIG. 42. SEAL OF LA ROCHELLE (A.D. 1437).]

Such seals as the following throw light on the ships of England in
the fifteenth century. That, for instance, of Richard Clitherowe,
Admiral of the West of England, 1406, shows a decorated sail and
flies an ensign at her stern. The reason for this flag being always
placed aft lies in the fact that the raised poop was the place
of honour reserved for the commander. Similar ships are seen in
such seals as those of Thomas Beaufort, Duke of Exeter, Admiral of
England, Aquitaine and Ireland (1416-1426): John Duke of Bedford,
Regent of France, Lord High Admiral of England, Ireland and Aquitaine
(1435): John Holland, second Earl of Huntingdon, Admiral of England,
Ireland and Aquitaine (1435-1442). This last seal shows the Admiral’s
lantern hanging over the poop. Similar ships may be seen in the seal
of Richard Plantagenet, third Duke of Gloucester, Admiral for Dorset
and Somerset (1461-1462); in the seal of Rutherglen (co. Lanark),
1493; in that of the English merchants of Holland—a fifteenth century
seal found at Harrow and now in the British Museum—and in various
others of this period. Their general characteristics include a
crescent-shaped hull with forecastle and sterncastle, fighting-top,
sail decorated with the arms of France and England, &c., forestay,
two backstays, and a rudder at stern. The seal of Rye, belonging to
the fifteenth century, shows three rows of reef-points, an ensign
with the cross of St. George as well as streamers on the mast.
Fig. 42 represents the seal of La Rochelle of the date 1437. It is
interesting as showing that while in England, in Damme, in Paris
(see the seal of the city of Paris of the year 1415) and elsewhere,
the crescent-shaped ship with castles was in vogue, this town kept
strenuously to the original Viking type. The bonnet with three rows
of reefs is clearly indicated, and similarly the sheets and stays.

We referred just now to the introduction of cannon as affecting the
design of ships. At first they were placed on the upper deck and
fired over the bulwarks, a modified pavisado of cloths or wood being
hung round to conceal both guns and gunners. Next it was but an easy
transition to make a hole through the bulwarks and insert the cannon.
Hence we have the origin of the word “gunwale” for the top “wale” or
plank. Subsequently this introduction of cannon necessitated a much
higher freeboard, and in course of time tier above tier of guns, as
in former times there had been tier above tier of rowers, came into
being. Owing to the weight of the guns so far aloft an increase of
beam became essential, but afterwards the exact opposite occurred.
Lest the beams should be strained, considerable tumble-home or
fall-inboard was made, so that the width of the upper deck became
only about half of the greatest beam.[59] We shall see, too, how
in later years this “tumble-home” was greatly exaggerated. As to
the effect of the new armament on a ship’s rig, we shall be able to
discuss this when we come to the bomb-ketch in Fig. 62.

We have seen how the ships of England have developed into the
crescent-shape by now. That, indeed, continued for some time, until
the fashion came for bigger and more powerful ships under the Tudor
_régime_. Practically with the end of the fifteenth century we bid
farewell to the Viking influence as clearly expressed, although it
were perhaps more correct to say that that design was not so much
discarded in later years as absorbed: enlarged upon and modified
rather than altogether supplanted. The first important addition to
the Viking design was that of the fighting castles. From thence it
was not a great step to add decks, guns instead of bows and arrows,
two masts instead of one, and an increase of beam and subsequently of
depth.




CHAPTER VI.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SAILING SHIP FROM THE TIME OF HENRY VII. TO
THE DEATH OF QUEEN ELIZABETH (1485-1603).


We enter now upon a period that will always be memorable for the
impetus given to maritime matters, and the consequent improvement
that took place in sailing ships of all kinds. In the history of
the latter there are two centuries that have witnessed the greatest
developments in the production of that most beautiful of all things
that man ever set himself to fashion out of wood or iron. The first
of these eras was the sixteenth century, and the other was the
nineteenth. But before we begin to consider the sixteenth, let us
briefly sum up all that had been effected by the end of the fifteenth.

We have seen how the early type that prevailed so long in England
was that of the Vikings, whilst in the Mediterranean the galley
and carack were collateral kinds of craft. Whilst it is true that
after the Crusades England did eventually begin to build real ships,
yet long before this time out of the ports of Venice, Genoa and
Barcelona were sailing big carrying ships of three decks and of
several hundred tons burthen. Of enormous freeboard, the carack and
caravel were more able to encounter bad weather and to remain in
commission both winter and summer. Able, too, to carry considerable
quantities of merchandise and large numbers of passengers with a
fair chance of making port in safety, they were from the first
destined to become the ideal ship for the trader in preference to
the galley. In war-time the galley was more handy because she could
be manœuvred quickly with oars. But the carack and caravel, when
guns were introduced, instantly exercised an undisputed superiority
in another respect, for they could carry larger and more numerous
cannon, and had the commanding advantage of height, though they
were in comparison with the galleys decidedly cumbrous. Slow in
stays, top-heavy and decidedly uncomfortable, pitching into every
sea, they were far from the ideal. Thus the galley (or its cousin
the galleass) remained in existence for fighting, as distinct from
merchant service, side by side until after the Armada. An effort was
made to re-introduce the galley in the English Navy under Charles
II., but though the galley flourished in the Mediterranean until the
eighteenth century, it was doomed in England gradually but surely
from the beginning of the fourteenth century.

The Viking-like ships of England had gradually undergone important
changes. Alfred had tried the experiment of building them of greater
displacement, and this increase in size had gone on steadily after
the time of William the Conqueror. Moreover, as we have seen, the
development of the forecastle and sterncastle had prepared the
English sailors for the logical outcome of these—the ship with two
or three decks. At first a mere light scaffolding, castellated at
the top and capable of being affixed to a merchant ship on the
declaration of war, these castles had in the march of time assumed
a more permanent character. Instead of being mere supports lashed
together, the framework became more solid, and the design of the
ship was adapted to suit these structures—the sweep of the hull, as
we have seen, coming up to meet the platform, which steadily became
lower and lower and projected less forward until both fore- and
stern-castle were essential portions of the vessel.

But besides the knowledge that our forefathers had gained through
studying the ships in the Mediterranean at the time of the Crusades
and after, owing to the large carrying trade, some of the big ships
from the three Mediterranean ports just mentioned were in the habit
of coming into English waters with their merchandise of gold,
silks and spices. Their stay here would not be too short for our
shipwrights to study their build and architecture. Here was a new
kind of ship that but few had ever seen. Their cargo capacity and
high freeboard, and the fact that they held a crew numerous enough
to fight pirates on even terms would instantly appeal to those who
had eyes to see. As soon as ever peace at home gave a sufficient
encouragement, shipbuilding was bound to go ahead on these larger
lines. Henry V., too, had actually in his navy some Genoese ships
of this type, and by the middle of the fifteenth century merchant
ships of 100 tons were not rare, and some of even 300 tons were in
existence, and trading to the Mediterranean, the Baltic and Iceland.
The galley was fast disappearing, and instead of the one-masted ship,
by the end of the fifteenth century a big vessel of 800 tons with
four masts and a bowsprit began to be built.

The evolution of the number of masts was on this wise. When the
single mast was multiplied two things happened. In the Mediterranean
the additional mast forward of the mainmast had become the _mât de
misaine_ (Italian _mezzana_ = foresail), or foremast. In Northern
Europe the mast was added aft, but nevertheless called mizzen—still
another instance of the confusion that has existed in nautical
nomenclature. We know from the illustrations on old manuscripts of
this period that vessels possessed as many as three and four masts,
and this is further confirmed by the inventories still extant of
Henry VII.’s ships. The same evidence proves the introduction by
now of topmasts as fixed though separate spars. There is even one
instance of a topgallant mast. Instead, therefore, of the old rig
consisting of one large sail on the one mast there is—reckoning from
forward to the stern—a spritsail on the bowsprit, a squaresail on
the fore and main masts with one small topsail on each of these two
masts, and a lateen or triangular-shaped sail on a yard, but with
no boom of course, hoisted up the mizzen-mast. The spritsail was a
squaresail on a yard lowered from the end of the bowsprit. If the
reader will look at the illustration in Fig. 46 he will see a badly
drawn, but none the less interesting, illustration of a carack of
the beginning of the sixteenth century. The ship in the foreground
is the _Cordelière_. Though much of the bow end is not shown, there
is sufficient to indicate how the fore- and stern-castles have come
down to be part of the hull, and how the latter has been increased in
length. The three masts will also be seen, though the bowsprit is not
shown. The castellated structures have become large, roomy cabins.
Guns will be seen on both the lower and main decks. It was about the
end of the fifteenth century, also, that portholes were introduced,
and the tiers in forecastle and poop reached as many as three. The
guns in the ships of Henry VII. were serpentines, breach-loading,
using lead, stone or iron ball. From the tops, picked men still
hurled javelins or shot arrows from their bows on to the enemy’s
decks below.

When Henry VII. ascended the English throne, the first real effort
in the direction of an adequate national navy was made. It was a
critical moment. The country’s finances had been drained by the
long-drawn out Wars of the Roses, so that her navy had been utterly
and grievously neglected. Notwithstanding that under Henry V. it
had increased to unprecedented strength—including as it did as
many as thirty-eight vessels ranging from 400 to 600 tons—yet on
the death of this fifth Henry the thirty odd ships that remained
were, disgraceful to relate, sold out of the service, and by 1430
the English Navy comprised only two or three dismantled hulks.[60]
It is true that Henry V. had been at great pains to build ships, and
Southampton Water and Hamble, the pretty little village on the river
of the same name, were in those days as interested in his ships of
war as to-day they are in the industry which yachting brings to both
of these places. It is true, also, that Edward IV. had at various
times during his reign bought some ships, including the _Grace à
Dieu_ and _Mary of the Tower_, and the _Martin Garsia_, and that his
successor, Richard III., had added to these three by the purchase of
the _Governor_. These four indeed came into the possession of Henry
VII. on his accession, but though the administration in his reign
represented an effort rather than a complete reorganisation, yet it
marked an important advance. He prepared the way for his successor
Henry VIII., and showed his keen interest in the navy and maritime
matters generally. But his especial good deed consisted in the
building of two warships which were a considerable advance on any
the country had previously possessed. Of these the _Regent_, of 600
tons, was inspired by French naval architecture. She was built on
the Rother about 1490 and carried 225 serpentines. These guns were
not of much avail in penetrating the enemy’s sides, but they would
be efficacious in destroying his sails and rigging and in sending
a sweeping fire over his decks. She had a foremast, foretopmast,
mainmast, main-topmast and main topgallant mast, main mizzen and
bonaventure mizzen.[61] Both mizzen-masts, having lateen-sails, were
without topmasts. From the bowsprit, as already described, there
was a spritsail. This, as we saw in Chapter III., had its origin
in the Roman ships. I think there can be little doubt but that the
spritsail was the lineal descendant of the artemon. It was scarcely
very wonderful that it survived so long, seeing that the galleys had
remained but little altered since classical times. We must not forget
that the rig of the squaresail-ship originated in the Mediterranean,
so that the spritsail would come most naturally to the aid of the
ship for her head canvas. Similarly the lateen, being everywhere seen
on the Mediterranean and Nile—on feluccas and dhows alike—would be
found at hand for the after canvas. The preference for a lateen sail
for the mizzen was based on the reason that such a sail will hold
a better wind—will sail at least a point closer to the breeze. Its
position in the stern was to facilitate the steering. The _Regent’s_
topmasts and topgallant mast were separate spars fixed to the
lower mast but could not be lowered or raised. The topgallant mast
had a sail but no yard. It was not till many years after that the
topgallant sails had yards. Mr. Masefield states that the topgallant
sail began like a modern moonraker, _i.e._ a triangular piece of
canvas, setting from truck to the yard-arm of the topsail yard
immediately below.[62]

The _Sovereign_ was of a similar type, though smaller. She had
two decks in the forecastle, two in the summercastle, and in the
topgallant poop. What the summercastle exactly was cannot be
discovered, but Mr. Oppenheim suggests the very probable theory that
it was the poop royal. At any rate it commanded an all-round fire
and carried many guns. We shall see as we proceed how strong the
tendency was in the sixteenth century to raise the poop to enormous
heights. The _Sovereign_ had no main topgallant mast as the _Regent_
possessed. All the armament of both ships was carried in the waist,
in the decks of the summercastle and poop, but there was no real
gun-deck. With all this top-hamper, there is no wonder that the
_Santa Maria_, Columbus’ ship, pitched so terribly. But in spite of
the guns, a considerable part of the fighting was entrusted to the
archers. Mr. Oppenheim mentions that the _Sovereign_ had on board 200
bows and 800 sheaves of arrows, and but small quantities of gunpowder
and lead.

When the _Regent_ and _Sovereign_ were launched at the end of the
fifteenth century the sensation which they caused can scarcely have
been inferior to that in our own times made by the launch of the
_Dreadnought_ and _Bellerophon_. The country had never produced such
ships before in size and equipment. But just as it would have been
impossible for our builders or designers to have suddenly brought
a _Dreadnought_ into being, so in the case of the _Sovereign_ and
the _Regent_ what was seen was the result of gradual progress. The
fifteenth century shipwrights and architects had step by step been
feeling their way to higher achievements, and had the Wars of the
Roses never occurred there can be little doubt but that these big
ships would have been launched in an earlier reign.

The standards flown by the ships of this period were of white linen
cloth, with red crosses of “say” (_i.e._, woollen cloth). The
streamers with which they were wont to decorate their vessels in
a somewhat profuse manner were also of linen cloth or “say.” The
_Regent_ had no gilding or carving, except a gilt crown. Nor was any
great expense made on the score of paint, for we find a record of the
painting of the _Regent_ and another ship called the _Mary Fortune_.
The whole job was done by contract for the sum of £2 19_s._ 10_d._
The davits, both of this period and for many years after, were used
not for hoisting the ship’s boats aboard—which was done by means
of tackles with poles and sheaves of brass—but for getting up the
anchors. There were both fixed davits and movable ones that could be
used in different parts of the ship. Most of the timber came from the
New Forest and Bere Forest, not far from Portsmouth. Iron was bought
by the ton and worked up at the royal forge into nails and spikes, &c.

In 1497 two smaller men-of-war, named respectively the _Sweepstake_
and the _Mary Fortune_, were built. But these were much smaller than
the other two, and carried three lower masts, a main topmast, as
well as a spritsail on the bowsprit. The _Grace à Dieu_, which Henry
had inherited on his accession to the throne, was renamed the _Harry
Grace à Dieu_. She is said to have cost £14,000, to have had four
pole masts, each with a circular top, a bowsprit, a built-up poop and
forecastle, as well as two complete and two partial tiers of guns
mounted in ports.[63] The late Sir W. Laird Clowes inclined to the
belief that the drawing of the _Harry Grace à Dieu_ in the Pepysian
Library, Cambridge, represents not the ship of the same name built in
the reign of Henry VIII., but that of which we are now speaking. By
the beginning of Henry VIII.’s reign she had either disappeared or
was known under a new name.

It was for a long time the custom of English monarchs in times of
peace to let out on hire the royal ships to merchants. Nor did
Henry VII. break away from this practice. Apart altogether from the
importance which big ships possessed from a naval point of view, it
was a profitable speculation to build large vessels. Merchants were
glad to hire them, since it saved the necessity of having to build
for themselves or of keeping them in commission when their voyages
were ended. The larger the tonnage of the ship the more popular were
they to the hirers, for the reason that they not only held more cargo
and were less likely to succumb to pirates, but that they could
voyage to virgin fields where trade could be established. Henry, in
addition to the ships he had inherited and built, also hired some
himself, both from his subjects and the Spanish. He even went so far
as to purchase some vessels from the latter, but Spain eventually
legislated to prevent Spanish-owned ships from being sold to foreign
Powers.

We find references in the naval accounts of this reign to caulking
with “ocum”; also to the “crane line,” which led from the sprit
mast to the forestay, and steadied the former. Among the details
preserved to us concerning the _Grace à Dieu_ we find that she had
three bonnets for the mainsail, the lacing that secured the bonnet
to the foot of the sail (after the manner adopted by the Vikings)
being called “latchetes.” There is a considerable similarity between
the nautical terms of this period and of our own time. Corks were
used for buoying anchors; “deadmen’s eyes” (dead-eyes, as we now
call them, through which the lanyards of the shrouds are passed),
“painters” (Mr. Oppenheim derives this familiar word from the old
French _pantiere_, meaning a noose); hawse, used in its old sense,
to mean the bows of a vessel—hence our modern expression “athwart
hawse,” meaning across the bows—these, as well as others, were in
daily use among sailormen. We find mention of the fact that the
_Grace à Dieu_ had “a shefe (_i.e._, a sheave or pulley-wheel) of
brasse in the bootes halse.” There were not always bulwarks or rails
to ships of this age, and sometimes before going into action a cable
was coiled round about the deck breast high in the waist, bedding and
mattresses being also requisitioned as protection against the enemy’s
fire.

[Illustration: FIG. 43. A CARAVEL OF THE END OF THE FIFTEENTH
CENTURY.]

As to other details of equipment, we have mention of these ships
possessing running glasses, _i.e._ sand glasses for the use of the
log which time has not even now wholly abolished in spite of the
patent log on sailing ships. Outriggers, or as they were called,
“outliggers,” “bitakles,” (_i.e._, binnacles), “merlyng irens,”
(_i.e._, marlin spikes) were also in use. By 1514 at any rate, the
usual length of a sounding line appears to be forty fathoms. There
were winches apparently on the _Sovereign_, for we find mention of
the “wheles for to wynde up the Mayne Sayle.” In order that the
large square sails should set as flat as possible, bowlines played
an important part during this century and after. In the case of very
large sails, the weight on the tack was relieved to some extent by
adding luff hooks and chains. As will be remarked in the illustration
of the _Cordelière_, in Fig. 46, _pavesses_, or wooden shields
bearing the devices or coats of arms, were placed along the ship’s
waist, and sometimes too, on the forecastle and poop. The reader will
recognise them as being survivals from the times when the Viking
sea-chiefs hung their shields along the bulwarks. At a later stage we
shall see these shields giving way to the waist cloth as a protection
for this part of the ship.

It was under Henry VII. that the bounty system for encouraging
shipbuilders was introduced. It was during his reign, too, that
Portsmouth Dockyard was founded, and that at this port the first dry
dock was built in England, and the _Sovereign_ was the first ship
known to have gone into it. We find among the Naval Accounts of Henry
VII., a record that on the tenth of October in the first year of his
reign, the _Grace à Dieu_ was docked at Hamble, or, as it was then
known, Hamill. But Mr. Oppenheim points out that this docking here
meant merely getting the ship high and dry on to the mud and then
surrounding her with a fence of brushwood. The popularity which,
during the fifteenth century, Hamble had shared with Southampton,
was decreasing as soon as ships of the size of the _Regent_ and
_Sovereign_ were built. Perhaps it was owing to the lack of water in
this river that the Portsmouth dry dock was made.

[Illustration: FIG. 44. A FIFTEENTH-CENTURY CARAVEL.]

All the time the unhappy Wars of the Roses had been wasting England’s
energy and finances, the people in the south-west corner of Europe
were prospering exceedingly. Whilst England was at a standstill as
regards development, Spain and Portugal were going rapidly ahead in
maritime matters. They had acquired an immense amount of nautical
knowledge from the Venetians and Genoese, and until the time came
for England to wake up and set her house in order, Portugal was
taking the lead in voyages of exploration. When Columbus set forth
in 1492 on the voyage that led to the discovery of the West Indies,
his fleet comprised his flagship, the _Santa Maria_, and two other
caravels named respectively the _Nina_ and the _Pinta_. We find
that the _Santa Maria_ proved to be “a dull sailer and unfit for
discovery.”[64] This statement is entirely borne out by Captain D. V.
Concas.[65] For from historical data, a replica of the _Santa Maria_
was built at Carraca by Spanish workmen in 1893, for the Chicago
Exhibition. She was sailed across the Atlantic on her own bottom the
same year with a Spanish crew. The course taken was exactly that
followed by Columbus on his first voyage. The time occupied was
thirty-six days, and the maximum speed obtained was about 6½ knots.
Captain Concas, who was in charge of her, reported that she pitched
horribly. The illustration in Fig. 43 represents a caravel of this
period, and will give the reader a general idea of the ships of this
time. This is from a photograph of a model made by Mr. Frank H.
Mason, R.B.A., and exhibited in the Franco-British Exhibition of
1908. It has since been presented by Lloyd’s to the South Kensington
Museum. The colouring of the underbody is quite correct, for we
find mention of the “white bellies” of the Spanish ships of the
sixteenth century being seen coming over the billows. The yard on
the bowsprit for the spritsail should not be shown as a fixture for
another hundred years later. The yards of the lower courses will be
observed, and two topsails with fighting-tops and the lateen yard
will be noticed aft. The rest of the rigging, including the stays and
braces, are so clear as to need little comment further, except that
the forestay should be provided with crane-lines as in Fig. 45. The
_cresset_ or lantern is shown in its correct place over the stern. A
cresset was, strictly speaking, a hollow vessel for holding a light,
and carried upon a pole. The light was produced from a wreathed rope
smeared with pitch or rosin. The development now reached by the
forecastle, and the tendency to exaggerate the height of the poop
which became in Spanish galleons even higher still, are worthy of
the reader’s attention. Fig. 44 is from a photograph of the caravel
model in the Royal United Service Museum, Whitehall. This is by no
means an accurate model and is only put forward as an interesting
representation of the manner of mounting the guns in these days, and
showing how tubby in proportion to their length such ships sometimes
were. It shows fairly accurately the proportion also to which the
sides of the hull just above the water-line projected as compared
with the narrow beam on deck. Whereas we saw in the illustration
of the _bucco_ in Fig. 35 a fighting-top of slender basket-work,
we have now a much more solid structure. No topsails are shown
here, but Columbus’s ship carried a main-topsail. Mr. Mason’s model
shows a fore-topsail which was certainly carried on ships of this
time, though not on the _Santa Maria_. The Whitehall model should
not carry the heavy figurehead, and a bowsprit should of course be
shown. The topmasts are also too long. Falconer’s “Marine Dictionary”
derives the caravel from the Spanish word _caravela_ as “a light,
round, old-fashioned ship with a square poop, formerly used in Spain
and Portugal.”[66] Levi derives the word as from either _carabos_,
meaning a kind of lobster, or from _cara-bella_, meaning a beautiful
shape, in reference, of course, to the lines of her hull.[67]

[Illustration: FIG. 45. COLUMBUS’S FLAGSHIP, THE “SANTA MARIA.”]

In Fig. 45 will be found a reproduction of what is probably the only
accurate model of the _Santa Maria_ in existence. This has been
constructed by Captain C. E. Terry, who has made it his hobby for
some years to gather together every item of information in connection
with Columbus’s ship. For this purpose he has searched all through
Southern Europe in order to collect every detail, and through his
courtesy I am enabled for the first time to show this interesting
little ship, which the reader may regard as approaching as nearly to
accuracy as possible at this late date. The sails with the Papal and
Maltese crosses, the flag of Ferdinand and Isabella flying above,
the crucifix over the stern, the crane-lines, the braces, sheets and
other gear may be taken as reliable. The bonnet and drabbler will
be found on the mainsail. On deck the brick-made cooking-galley,
and the capstan, though not decipherable from the photograph, have
been correctly placed. A careful examination of the lead of the gear
will explain the rigging more quickly than by detailing every rope
individually.

Not all the Spanish ships were rigged with square-sails. Indeed,
the lateen sail in the Mediterranean gave way reluctantly to the
rectangular shape, as is only natural in the seas so dominated by
the felucca rig. Columbus’s ship, which was reconstructed according
to every known source of information, had of course a lateen
mizzen. She was three-masted, having a square mainsail with topsail
of much smaller size, but “goaring” out considerably from a small
yard. On the foremast was a square course but no topsail, while from
the bowsprit was carried a square spritsail. In Mr. Filson Young’s
work already referred to, the interesting fact is mentioned that
after Columbus and his three ships had set forth they had to put into
Grand Canary for a new rudder to be made for the _Pinta_, and that
while they were waiting for this to be done the rig of the _Nina_ was
changed from lateen to squaresail like that of the _Santa Maria_, so
that the _Nina_ might be able to keep up with the others. For a ship
that was about to cross the wide ocean of the Atlantic no sailorman
nowadays would dispute this wise proceeding on the part of Columbus.
As to the relative size of these ships the _Santa Maria_ was of
about one hundred tons burthen, 90 feet long and 20 feet beam. Other
accounts make her slightly larger, and she carried a crew numbering
fifty-two. The _Nina_ was a much smaller ship of about forty tons.

Inasmuch as we are studying not so much the history of voyages as
of the ships that actually carried the voyagers there is not here
the scope to enter into a discussion of the reasons that prompted
Columbus to go West. But it may not be out of place to point to the
fact that it was no mere haphazard undertaking. We mentioned in an
earlier chapter that the Vikings who colonised Iceland in a previous
century also sailed further on from there to the American Continent.
Now Columbus had visited Iceland and may in all probability have
heard of the tradition that there was land to the far west across the
seas. As Lord Dunraven mentions, Columbus knew that the world was
more or less round, and that consequently the more he sailed West
the nearer he would come to the well-known regions of the East. We
must remember, too, that for some time the Portuguese and Spaniards
had been applying themselves to the study of charts and the science
of navigation. Columbus, himself, was a mapmaker, and a man with a
scientific mind. But besides all this there was the story of the
“unknown pilot,” whose ship having been blown from Spain or Portugal
across the Atlantic had reached new land. Taking these considerations
in conjunction with an age almost bursting with energy, that was
thirsting for knowledge only to be obtained through adventure
and perseverance, it was inevitable that the New World should be
discovered.

As to the navigational instruments Columbus had with him a compass
divided into 360° and 32 points as to-day, although the points were
named somewhat differently. Nor was he prevented through lack of
knowledge from taking observations of the sun. He had a cross-staff,
a quadrant and a sea astrolabe. The voyage five years later of John
Cabot, an Italian, to the mainland of America with a Bristol ship and
Bristol sailors; of Vasco de Gama doubling the Cape of Good Hope _en
route_ to India, and of other enterprising and courageous navigators
could only have the effect of influencing the subsequent building of
ships of greater tonnage and seaworthiness.

[Illustration: FIG. 46. THE FRENCH SHIP “CORDELIÈRE” IN THE
FOREGROUND, WITH THE ENGLISH “REGENT” IN THE BACKGROUND, ON FIRE OFF
BREST.]

One of the largest ships of this time was the French _Cordelière_
in Fig. 46. Although it is not quite safe to rely too much on the
reported tonnage of these mediæval vessels, hers has been assessed
at 700 while the _Regent_ and the _Sovereign_ have been estimated at
1000 each. Another famous contemporary French ship was the _Grand
Louise_ of 790 tons. The latter was a four-master. She had pavesses
around her like those on the _Cordelière_. Cannon were carried on her
deck. Her mainsail was decorated with a shield device, whilst the
main-mizzen and the bonaventure mizzen carried lateen-sails. In the
illustration just mentioned the _Cordelière_ is in the foreground,
the ship behind being the _Regent_. While the latter was attacking
the French ship off Brest at the beginning of Henry VIII.’s reign
both vessels caught fire and became a total loss. Our illustration,
which is taken from a MS. in the Bibliothèque Nationale, shows this
mournful incident depicted.

Not entirely had the galley disappeared yet. In a warrant dated
January 29, 1510,[68] we find mention of caracks, galleys,
row-barges, hulks, barks (great barks and “lesse barks”), ships
and crayers. The latter were victualling ships. Thus when the
_Sovereign_ sailed from Portsmouth she had with her the _Trinity
of Wight_ (80 tons), the _James of London_ (80 tons) and the
_Katherine Pomegranate_ as her victuallers. We find in this warrant
also mentioned “twyne, merling (marlin), ropes, cables, cabletts
(these were used for the mainstay), boyes (buoys), lynes, tacks,
lists, toppe-armers, stremers, standards, compasses, ronnyng glasses
(sand-glasses for the log), lanterns, shevers of bras, poleys,
shrowdes” and other “taclyng.” The same warrant directs the building
of the _Mary Rose_ of 400 tons and the _Peter Pomegranate_ of 300
tons. The former foundered at Spithead in the year 1545.

It was in 1514 that the famous _Henri Grace à Dieu_, commonly known
as the “Great Harry,” was built. The custom having recently grown up
of passing on the name of an obsolete ship to her successor, and of
reserving special names for the largest class and still further of
embodying in it the name also of the ruling sovereign, it was but
natural that this great “Harry” should be so named. Of the available
illustrations of this ship that shown here in Fig. 47 and reproduced
from Holbein’s painting in Hampton Court Palace, is perhaps the most
reliable. The incident depicted is the embarkation of Henry VIII.
from Dover, on May 31, 1520, to meet Francis I. at the Field of the
Cloth of Gold. Besides this picture there exists another which hung
for many years in Canterbury Cathedral, and is supposed to represent
this vessel. It was afterwards presented by the Dean to Sir John
Norris, Admiral of the Fleet, who died in 1749. In 1750 an engraving
was made by Allen, and a copy is to be found in the Print Room of the
British Museum. The original of Allen’s engraving has been ascribed
to Holbein, but it seems pretty certain that this print depicts, not
the “Great Harry” of the reign of Henry VIII., but a ship of later
date. Nor, as we have mentioned above, does it seem probable that the
_Henri Grace à Dieu_ in the Pepysian Library represents this vessel.

[Illustration: FIG. 47. THE EMBARKATION OF HENRY VIII. FROM DOVER IN
1520, SHOWING THE “HENRI GRÂCE À DIEU.”

_Photo. W. M. Spooner & Co._]

The _Henri Grace à Dieu_ of the time of Henry VIII. had four masts
with two decks and topgallant sails on fore, main and main-mizzen
masts. On the bonaventure mizzen she carried a topsail above the
lateen but no topgallant. The fore and main masts had topsails as
well. Happily her inventory is still extant and will be found in Mr.
Oppenheim’s volume on the administration of the Navy of the reign
of Henry VIII.[69] Her tonnage was 1500, and she represents still
another advance in the construction of big ships. Her launching one
day in the middle of June had been a memorable ceremony, in the
presence of the Court, the ambassadors of both the Emperor and the
Pope, as well as a distinguished crowd of bishops and nobles. Her
armament, according to her existing inventory of 1514, included 184
pieces of ordnance, of which 126 were brass and iron serpentines.

Two more of Henry VIII.’s ships will be seen in Figs. 48 and 49.
Both have been photographed from the coloured drawings of “The
Rolle declaryng the Nombre of the Kynges Maiestys owne Galliasses”
by Anthony Anthony in the Pepysian Library of Magdalene College,
Cambridge. The date of the roll is 1546, one part being now in the
British Museum and the other half in the Pepysian Library, as
stated. Originally, both rolls belonged to Samuel Pepys. Quaint as
these representations are, they are contemporary records and of some
real interest to us. The _Murrian_, in Fig. 48, was brought into the
Royal Navy in 1545 and sold out in 1551. Her tonnage was 500, and
she had 300 men, 10 brass guns and 53 iron guns. The reader will
notice the manner of stowing the spritsail which is correctly shown.
Along the waist of the vessel the pavesses can just be discerned. The
netting spread over the ship’s deck was as a protection against the
enemy’s missiles dropped from the fighting-tops. Astern the ship’s
biggest boat is seen towing, as was the custom when at sea, except in
bad weather, “much as one may see a brig or a topsail schooner to-day
with a dinghy dragging astern.”[70] The boat’s coxswain stayed in her
as she towed, keeping her clean, fending her off, and looking out
for any of the crew who happened to tumble overboard. The _Struse of
Dawske_ (_i.e._ Danzig) in Fig. 49, had been purchased in 1544, and
was sold out of the service the same year as the _Murrian_. She was
very similar to the other ship but slightly smaller. Her tonnage was
450, she carried 250 men, 39 iron guns, but none of brass.

[Illustration: FIG. 48. THE “MURRIAN.”]

[Illustration: FIG. 49. THE “STRUSE.”

TWO OF HENRY VIII.’S SHIPS.]

Another ship in this roll called the _Jesus of Lubeck_, being of 700
tons, having been purchased by Henry VIII. from the merchants of
Lubeck in 1544, shows steel sickle-shaped bill-hooks affixed to the
yard arms, so that in battle she could sail alongside the enemy and
tear his rigging to pieces, but it was inevitable that the aggressor
would injure himself scarcely less than his foe, and these hooks had
disappeared before the end of the century, though their origin was of
great antiquity. (See also Fig. 56.)

From a delightful volume[71] of this reign entitled the “Book of War
by Sea and by Land,” by Jehan Bytharne, Gunner in Ordinary to the
King, and bearing date 1543, we are able to verify the truth of the
vain display of flags seen in the illustrations of the _Murrian_ and
_Struse_. There is so much interesting matter contained in this work
respecting contemporary ships that I make no apology to the reader
for dealing with its contents at some length. Although the earliest
code of signals belonged to about 1340 and was given out for the
guidance of the fleets at Sluys, yet we have now much more elaborate
directions.

Bytharne tells us just what we want to know about the decoration of
the ships of his time. The external ornamentation from the mainwale
to the top of the castles ought to be painted, he says, with the
colours and devices of the admiral. Likewise the forecastle and
after-castle were to be decorated as splendidly as possible. All the
shields—as we saw in the _Cordelière_—round the upper part of the
castles were to be emblazoned with the admiral’s arms and devices
also. Above the forecastle on a staff inclining forwards was to be
a (pennon) of the admiral’s colours and devices, as also at the two
corners of the castle. Amidships there should be two square banners,
emblazoned with the admiral’s arms, and on the after-castle high
above the rudder he was to have a large square banner larger than
any of the others. From the maintop a broad swallow-tailed standard
was to be flown, of such a length as to reach to the water, and
emblazoned with the admiral’s arms and devices also.

For celebrating a triumph the ship was to be covered in and curtained
with rich cloth and draped. “You may also paint your sails with such
devices and colours as you choose, or with the representation of a
saint if you prefer it.” Then follow the signals to be employed for
summoning the captains of the ships to come aboard the flagship. If
a strange ship were espied, this was to be signalled by putting a
square banner in a weft in the shrouds half-way up on that side
on which the strange ship was seen. At sunset all the ships of the
fleet were to pass ahead of the admiral’s ship and to shout three
times, one after the other, and if they had trumpets they were to be
sounded. At the third shout the master of the admiral’s ship was to
return the salute “causing all those of your ship to shout and the
trumpets and drums to sound.” And each ship as she made the salute
was to ask for the watchword for the night and what course to steer.
These having been given, the ships were all to drop astern again, and
not pass ahead of the flagship during the night on pain of severe
punishment.

Nor to any one gifted with imagination and a love of the beautiful
can the following picture make an ineffectual appeal. For, after the
above instructions had been carried out, the admiral was to cause to
be sung the evening hymn to our Lady before her image, after which
all lights were to be put out except those in the cabins of the
gentlemen, who may have lamps trimmed with water covered with oil,
but neither candles nor any other kind of light, owing to the risk of
fire. The grandeur of these old ships with their plentiful freeboard
towering high above water, pitching backwards and forwards to the
swell of the sea, their highly coloured hulls lit up by the last
rays of a glowing sunset, and the strong rough voices of the crew
singing their solemn plain-chant as the freshening breeze wafted it
to leeward—such an incident would have impressed itself on our minds
scarcely less forcibly than the massive _Mauretania_ to-day racing
over the Atlantic eastward with the sun sinking astern, her masthead,
port and starboard lights showing, while the rich notes of a grand
piano come floating out from the luxurious drawing-room.

The admiral was further to appoint persons who should see that all
the crew not kept up on duty were to retire—soldiers and officers
alike. At the stern of the ship a cresset with flaming combustibles
was to burn so that every one might recognise the admiral’s ship and
follow, no other vessel being allowed to carry such a fire. But if
the fleet contained a vice-admiral, he was allowed to carry just such
a light, but the admiral must then carry two instead of one. The ship
was also to carry a large lantern in which were three or four great
lamps with great lights to make a powerful illumination. The use of
this lantern in place of the cresset was when the wind was blowing
hard or from astern, and it became necessary to put out the cresset
lest the ship should catch fire. At break of day the “two nimble
ships” which sailed some distance ahead of the fleet were to come
back and salute the admiral as at nightfall. They were then to take
their orders for the day, go on ahead again and keep just in sight.
At sunrise a fanfare was to be sounded on the trumpets, the other
ships to salute as at sunset, the admiral’s ship keeping under easy
sail until they had done so. Then “at such hour of the morning as
shall please you your chaplain” is to say a dry Mass.[72]

For his interest in the Navy, England owes a debt to Henry VIII.
Under him it became a separate, organised force instead of being
a mere auxiliary of the army. About eighty vessels and thirteen
row-barges of twenty tons were added during his reign to the ships
inherited from his predecessor. Many were purchased from the
Venetians and the Hanseatic League, who were the great merchant
seamen of this time. Some also were prizes taken from the enemy,
but about forty odd were actually built during this reign, among
which may be mentioned the _Tiger_, which was flush-decked without
any superstructures and heavily armed; and the _Ann Gallant_.
Whereas clinker-built vessels had been almost universal from the
times of the Vikings, carvel-built ships were now being used, as
being both stronger and faster. Coloured cloths were put round the
fighting-tops, and the hulls, besides being carved and gilded,
were painted various colours. Sometimes the Tudor colours of green
and white were seen, but ash and timber shafts became common under
Elizabeth. In the ships of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
the yellow colour above the waterline of our ships was more
pronounced. The crews of Henry VIII.’s ships wore the Tudor colours
of white and green also, cloth being used for the sailors and satin
or damask for the officers.[73]

Under Edward VI. the power of the Hanseatic League began gradually to
wane, and consequently the superiority which in respect of ships it
had possessed over those of our nation became less marked. Perhaps
no maritime incident of this reign is more interesting than the
preparation, the setting out, and the partial accomplishment of the
voyage from our shores to discover a passage by way of Archangel
to China. Those who know their Hakluyt will agree that few yarns
written nowadays by either professional or amateur sailormen are
so absorbingly interesting as this record: those who have still to
read this record will enjoy it thoroughly. It is not possible here
to give even a summary of this lengthy voyage, in which Sir Hugh
Willoughby and his crew perished of cold and starvation, though
Richard Chancellor reached as far as Archangel. But there are some
details given in the account that are pertinent to our inquiry of
the sailing ship. Among the instructions given to the voyagers were
that the fleet should keep together as far as possible. A log was to
be kept by day and night, “with the points and observation of the
lands, tides, elements, altitude of the sunne, course of the moon
and starres.” The fleet comprised the _Bona Esperanza_, flagship,
of 120 tons, “having with her a pinnesse and a boate,” the _Edward
Bonaventure_, 160 tons, and the _Bona Confidentia_, 90 tons, the
last two ships having the same number of boats as the first. Their
progress down the Thames was not rapid, for it took them from the
tenth of May till the twenty-second to get from Ratcliffe to Hole
Haven. They could not sail nearer to the wind than seven points, for
the statement is made that “the wind veared to the West, so that we
could lie but North and by West.”[74] Approaching a strange harbour,
they would first send forth the ship’s “pinnesse” before entering.
They were not long in discovering that “the land lay not as the Globe
made mention.” The “Confidence being troubled with bilge water, we
thought it good to seeke harbour for her redresse.”

The cost of purchasing these three ships was £6000 according to
another account also included in Hakluyt, and written by one, Clement
Adams, who praises very highly the “very strong and well seasoned
plankes for the building,” as well as the skill of the shipwrights
who “calke them, pitch them, and among the rest they make one most
stanch and firme, by an excellent and ingenious invention.” This
invention is that “they cover a piece of the keele of the shippe with
thin sheetes of leade, for they had heard that in certaine parts of
the Ocean a kinde of wormes is bredde, which many times pearceth
and eateth through the strongest oake that is.” The reader will
recollect that this “invention” was known to the inhabitants of the
Mediterranean for many hundreds of years before this.[75] The same
writer states that when they departed from Ratcliffe “upon the ebbe”
“with the turning of the water” the “greater shippes” were “towed
downe with boates, and oares, and the mariners being apparelled in
watchet or skie coloured cloth, rowed amaine.” The Court being at
Greenwich they fired a salute while “one stoode in the poope of the
ship, and by his gesture bids farewell to his friendes ... another
walkes upon the hatches, another climbes the shrowds, another stands
upon the maine yard, and another in the top of the shippe.” When they
arrived at Harwich, to Chancellor’s dismay, part of the victuals were
found to be “corrupt and putrified” “and the hoggesheads of wine also
leaked, and were not stanch.”

During the reign of Mary the fishing and coasting traffic flourished,
but it is when we enter upon the reign of Elizabeth that we find the
greatest encouragement given. It was she who repealed all existing
restrictions in connection with navigation laws, so that merchants
were allowed to use whatever ships they possessed, whether foreign
or English-built. More sensible and far-sighted than some of our
modern legislators, she was wise enough to restrict the coasting
trade to British ships. In this reign, too, telescopes were invented,
Mercator’s chart of the world completed, the art of navigation
developed, hydrography taken up seriously, the harbours of England
and estuaries well surveyed, pilotage and buoyage systematised and
placed under the care of the corporation of Trinity House. The
variation of the compass had been already observed by Columbus and
Cabot, but under Elizabeth the matter was given serious study.

The carrying trade, which for so long a time between England and the
Mediterranean had been the monopoly of ships belonging to Venice
or Genoa or Spain, now belongs exclusively to English vessels. Our
shipwrights, too, were building craft of finer lines and longer
on the keel. Hawkins, perhaps the ablest shipbuilder of the reign
and a practical seaman who had roved over the seas as pirate and
slave-hunter too, was foremost in designing ships on what were then
new principles. He it was who recognised that the enormously high
poops and forecastles of the prevailing type were as unnecessary as
they were unwieldy. These were cut down considerably, and the reader
will notice the changes effected if he will compare the illustration
of the _Ark Royal_ in Fig. 50 with that of a Spanish galleon in Fig.
55. Practical test was made of the new type as soon as the Armada
came sailing up the English Channel in July of 1588, with the usual
south-west wind blowing. Howard’s ships sailed close-hauled out of
Plymouth, succeeded in getting to windward of the Spanish craft, and
keeping out of range of their guns, his own ordnance being of much
longer range, poured a terrific fire into the enormous freeboard
of the enemy, who found themselves at once both outsailed and
outcannoned.

By adding also to the draught of water the Elizabethans were making
their ships more weatherly and less likely to roll in a seaway. Among
other advantages arising from this would be better marksmanship than
could ever be obtained on a galleon pitching her head into every
sea and making good gunnery almost impossible except in calms. An
interesting comparison is possible when we mention that the new
English ships possessed a length three and a half times their beam;
nevertheless, the galley had been about seven times the breadth.
Besides the green and white colours, Elizabethan ships were also
painted outside black and white, red, or the timber-colour previously
mentioned. Figureheads, consisting of a dragon or a lion, were in
vogue, and carved figures of men and beasts decorated also the
interior. Cabins were painted and upholstered in green and white,
whilst at the stern the royal arms were displayed in gold and
colours. Sir Walter Raleigh in his “Judicious and Select Essayes
and Observations,” printed in London in 1650, refers to the recent
invention of topmasts, which could be lowered or raised instead of
being kept permanently fixed as hitherto had been the custom. He
describes these as being “a wonderfull great ease to great ships,
both at sea and harbour.”[76] He also mentions as recent innovations
chain pumps, studding sails, topgallant sails and the weighing of the
anchor by means of the capstan, and the introduction of the bonnet
on the lower courses. But as to these last two items he is quite
incorrect. The bonnet had existed at least from the Viking times, and
we saw it on some of the seals. But below the bonnet was now laced on
another called a drabbler. Instead of reefing as nowadays by taking
in the foot of the sail, the drabbler would be unlaced, for one or
two reefs, and the bonnet removed for a close reef. The yard would
then be lowered away some distance from the mast. The same authority
refers to the practice which had come into fashion of using long
cables by which “we resist the malice of the greatest winds that can
blow.”

He tells us also how the _Marie Rose_ of Henry VIII.’s time was lost
when getting under way. She heeled over, and the water rushing in
through her ports, which were only sixteen inches above the water,
she sank. Raleigh goes on to say that they were now making such
improvements in their ships as would prevent such a catastrophe
occurring again; but we know that more than one instance of this kind
of calamity happened in later times owing to the same cause, notably
the case of the _Royal George_. Royal ships, he tells us, were being
strengthened by pillars fastened from keelson to the beams of the
second deck and so keeping them from giving way in bad weather. He
rejoices over the improvement of the lines in the new ships mentioned
above “whereby they never fall into the sea after the head and shake
the whole body, nor sinck a sterne, nor stoope upon a wind.” He
gives the following essentials for the building of a good ship:
That she be strong, swift, stout-sided, able to carry her guns in
all weathers, be seaworthy and stay well when boarding and turning
on a wind. He advises that in order to make her sail well the ship
should be given a long run forward and not sink into the water, but
lie clear above it. He suggests, too, that her lowest tier of guns be
four feet above water, and in order to be a good sea-boat she have
a good draught of water and not be overcharged with towering poops,
“which commonly the king’s ships are.” This “overcharging” compelled
the ships in bad weather to “lie at trye” (_i.e._, heave-to, hence
the derivation of the word try-sail), under main-course and mizzen.
In protesting against this excessive overcharging of poops and decks
he adds, “two decks and a half is sufficient to yield shelter and
lodging for men and mariners and no more charging at all higher, but
only one low cabbin for the master.”

Large ships had two decks, an upper one and a gun-deck underneath.
Towards the end of the sixteenth century, a third deck, called a
false orlop was laid in the hold to carry cabins and stores. The ship
was divided transversely on both upper and lower decks by means of
bulkheads where the forecastle and poop ended. Gravel ballast was
used to such an extent that but little room was left for stores. A
large portion of the space left in the hold of the ship in the waist
was taken up by the cooking-galley which was a solid structure of
bricks and mortar. Raleigh[77] complains of the heat “that comes from
the cook roome” as well of the risk of fire which it afforded, and
of the unsavoury smells which emanated from this part of the ship.
He therefore recommends that the “cook roomes” be placed in the
forecastle instead, as was the custom already adopted by many of the
merchant ships.

When Elizabeth came to the throne, the _Henri Grace à Dieu_ had
been accidentally burnt five years before. Apart from the _Jesus
of Lubeck_ (700 tons), the _Triumph_ was the largest English ship
afloat. Built in 1561, her tonnage was over a thousand, and her
crew numbered 500. Until the launching of the _Prince Royal_ in
1610, she was the finest English ship afloat. But though there were
improvements going on in regard to the building of the ships, the lot
of the sailor was not entirely a happy one. Musty rations, want of
clothes, and the harmful effects of the bilge water collecting in the
bottom of the ship and emitting an unwholesome stench, caused scurvy
and dysentery; and the sailors of both the English ships and the
Spanish Armada suffered terribly from these. But on the other hand,
we find that as early as the year 1601, Lancaster, during his first
voyage for the East India Company, kept the crew of his flagship in
comparatively good health by serving out lime-juice.[78]

[Illustration: FIG. 50. THE “ARK ROYAL,” ELIZABETH’S FLAGSHIP. BUILT
IN 1587.]

The illustration in Fig. 50 is of the _Ark Royal_, from a
contemporary print in the Print Room of the British Museum. Built
for Sir Walter Raleigh in 1587, she was sold while on the stocks
to Queen Elizabeth for £5000. Her name was to have been the _Ark
Ralegh_, but on being purchased it was changed as above. Her name
was, after the end of this reign, changed to the _Anne Royal_, and
in 1625, while returning from Cadiz, she began to leak like the
proverbial lobster-pot and only reached home with difficulty. In
1636, while lying in the Thames, she bilged on her own anchor and
sank. It was this _Ark Royal_ that was Elizabeth’s flagship of the
fleet that defeated the Armada, and for this reason, if for no other,
she is deserving of a more complete consideration than we have room
to devote to other ships of this period. Sir William Monson,[79]
who was already a captain by 1587, gives her tonnage as 800, and
the number of her crew as 400. Happily the complete inventory of
the _Ark Royal_ is still in existence, and the reader is referred
to the “State Papers Relating to the Defeat of the Spanish Armada,
anno 1588.”[80] It was compiled in September 1588 after the _Ark
Royal_ had come in for a survey, having been out in the Channel in
the memorable victory. All the tackle and spars and sails, every
item of the inventory down to the kettles for the cooking-room is
mentioned. From this list we find that the spritsail, besides its
yard, had clew lines, braces, sheets, halyards, and “a false tye.”
Sir Henry Manwayring, who also fought in the fleet against the
Armada, in his “Seamen’s Dictionary” defines ties as four-strand
ropes, hawser-laid, being the ropes by which the yards hang. But the
spritsail yard having no ties, was made fast by a pair of slings to
the bowsprit. Among the items of the rigging of the foremast are
included the “fore pennants,” and both the falls and pennants of the
“swifters.” Referring to Manwayring’s “Dictionary,” we find that
“swifters doe belong to the maine and foremast, and are to succour
the shrowdes and keep stiffe the mast. They have pendants, which are
made fast under the shrowdes at the head of the mast with a double
block, through which is reeved the swifter.” Mention must be made of
the “forebolings” and main bowlines. Our ancestors made great use of
these bowlines in order that these great square sails might set quite
flat. Until the triangular head sails came in about the middle of the
eighteenth century, the foremast was stepped very far forward, for
the spritsail was only used off the wind and when getting under way.
The manner in which the spritsail in this illustration of the _Ark
Royal_ is shown in the head stowed is quite correct.

The inventory mentions also the clew-garnets and martnets
(leech-lines) of the foresail, and the “fore-puttocks” (_i.e._,
futtock shrouds) of the foretopmast. The fall of the martnets of
the topsails led down into the fighting-top where it was hauled,
and the expression “top the martnets” was the order for hauling the
martnets up. The yards were hoisted by jeers or halyards. Manwayring
defines “jeere” as a hawser, made fast to the main or fore yard close
to the ties of great ships only. It came through a block which was
seized close to the top and led down to another block at the bottom
of the mast close to the deck. Great ships had one on either side
of the ties. Apart from the use of the jeer to hoist or lower the
yards, it was especially serviceable for taking some of the weight
off the ties, and to hold the yard from falling down if the ties
should break. In fights, when the sickle-shaped shear-hooks already
mentioned were used by the enemy, the opponent would sling his yards
in chains “for feare least the ties should be cut, and so the yards
fall downe, and these chaines are called slings” (Manwayring). The
lateen yards on the mizzen and bonaventure-mizzen had parrals to
secure them to the masts.

The _Ark Royal_ carried three bower anchors of 20 cwt. as well
as three others and a grapnel. She had fifty fathoms of 15-inch
cable, three compasses, four running glasses, three flags of St.
George and two of the Queen’s arms, as well as a silk ensign. In
the illustration before us the St. George’s flags will be noticed
flying at the fore and bonaventure mizzen; at the main is the royal
standard, and at the main-mizzen the Tudor Rose. From the spritsail
yard flies a pennant surcharged with a St. George’s cross, from the
foretop a pennant bearing a foul anchor, being the pennant of the
Lord High Admiral. This flag will also be noticed on the foremast of
the ship of Charles II.’s time of the frontispiece. In fact, as the
reader is probably aware, this is still used as the Admiralty’s flag.
From the fore topgallant yard is a streamer bearing a lion rampant,
of Lord Howard of Effingham, Lord High Admiral of England; from the
maintop another streamer, striped, whilst at the waist is a large
banner with Howard’s arms thereon. The inventory includes ballast
baskets for carrying the gravel on board, or in which it would be
stowed; netting for the forecastle, the waist and the half-deck, as
well as cloths for the waist and top armours for the mizzen top, but
we shall refer to these later.

Touching the sails of the _Ark Royal_, she had a bonnet to her
spritsail laced on in the manner adopted to-day by the wherry-man of
the Norfolk Broads. The mainsail and foresail and main mizzen also
had the bonnet, but the others had not, although a topsail bonnet
was found rarely. The foresail had a double bonnet with a single
drabbler, likewise the mainsail. In the case of the main mizzen the
bonnet was a double one. The inventory only includes one topgallant
sail, although three are shown in this engraving. This fact is
certainly an argument for those who assert that the illustration
represents not the _Ark Royal_, although the rest of the evidence
is against this assertion. Much more likely is it that the other
topgallant sails were added at a later date.

The inventory includes a sail for the ship’s boat, and two for the
pinnesse. A longboat with a brass sheave in the head and supplied
with oars, a pinnesse and a “cocke” (derived from the French _coque_)
which was a ship’s boat, as well as an older pinnesse, were carried
on board the _Ark Royal_. During the survey at Chatham it was decided
to have her overlop in the waist made less curved and more level for
the sake of placing the guns in better position, a lesson that had
been impressed on them even more forcibly by the ill-success of the
fire of the Spaniards. In our illustration it will be noticed that
the curve has disappeared. I therefore conclude that this engraving
was made after the ship had been altered at Chatham. It seems very
probable that it was during this overhaul that the other topgallant
sails were added, in which case the argument against the veracity of
this engraving is rebutted.

Elizabeth’s own royal ships were undoubtedly fine able vessels for
their time. They were seaworthy, and at any rate during the time of
the Armada did not suffer from leaks. But the same statement cannot
be made of the merchant ships that joined the royal fleet from the
various English ports. These were far from sound and leaked badly.
In a letter from Howard to Walsyngham[81] we find that the merchants
besought the former that he and the rest of Her Majesty’s fleet would
carry less sail for they could not endure it, while “we,” writes
Howard, “made no reckoning of it.” This inferiority is confirmed also
by Seymour, who writes to say that the merchant ships in the English
fleet were not as good sea-boats as the Queen’s.

Before we leave the _Ark Royal_, let us call to the reader’s
attention a detail that, if he is a sailorman, he will have already
noticed. The furling of the sails, correctly shown here, is very
clumsy and bungling. The custom was when the sails were furled to
bind them to the yard with rope yarns, and these yarns were cut to
loose the sail when getting under way. Thus Sir William Wynter,
writing on February 28, 1587, concludes his letter: “Written aboard
the Vanguard, being in the Downs, ready to cut sail.”[82]

Centuries ago, when England had only her Viking-like craft, she had
bravely claimed for herself the Sovereignty of the Seas. It was to
the foreigner an insolent, arrogant boast. She had fought for the
distinction many times. Spain had grown up to be the first maritime
nation of the world, but just as in after years the Dutch and
the French had, not without a severe tussle, to be prevented from
usurping this distinction, so England had to smash the Armada—the
greatest aggregation of naval power the world had ever seen on one
sea—and with this defeat England was again, for a time at least, the
mistress of the sea. Drake’s voyage round the world with a squadron
of five ships, the largest of which did not exceed 100 tons, set the
final seal on the abilities of English seamanship and navigation. The
victory over the Armada settled their superiority in ships, strategy
and shooting.

Before we pass from the story of the fight that never grows old—and
there is no more stirring reading than the plain narrative included
in Hakluyt—let us not forget that capable as were the royal ships
of Elizabeth, they could never have been victorious had not the
West countrymen of England come to help with their ships and their
crews. The former may have been leaky, the latter may have been not
as skilled as Howard’s men in the finer arts of war, but they did
their duty, in spite of a thousand drawbacks, and did it well. Where
had they learned their seamanship? How was it that they had even
such good ships as they possessed but a hundred years after Henry
VII. had come to the throne? As Mr. Blackmore points out,[83] ever
since the discovery of Newfoundland the men of Cornwall and Devon had
gone forth year after year to fish for cod off the Banks. Kipling,
Connolly, and others, have sung the epic of the brave fishermen
who to-day race out to the same banks from Gloucester, U.S.A. Most
readers of fiction know that cruising about there is no latitude for
a fair-weather sailor, yet three hundred years before them, when
the arts of shipbuilding and navigation were not what they are now,
Englishmen in ships built at Dartmouth and elsewhere were making
regular voyages across the broad Atlantic to those fishing banks.
Big vessels and brave capable seamen were essential for these trips.
Both, at the summons of necessity, had gradually evolved from the
West Country, and, at the hour of need, placed themselves at the
service and in the defence of their fatherland.

[Illustration: FIG. 51. ELIZABETHAN MAN-OF-WAR.]

What were the kinds of ships that sailed in English waters during
the reign of Elizabeth? As far as historical research will suffer us
let us try and obtain a general idea as to their rig and appearance.
Fig. 51, which is taken from the Rawlinson MSS. in the Bodleian,
affords an excellent example of an Elizabethan man-of-war. The flags
flying are the green and white Tudor colours on the ensign staff and
the St. George at the main, which was the national flag, but it was
men-of-war only that were allowed to fly it at the main. According
to Manwayring the Elizabethan ships, when running before a wind or
with the wind on the quarter in the case of a fair fresh gale, often
unparralled the mizzen lateen yard from the mast, and launched out
the yard and sail over the quarter on the lee side, fitting guys at
the further end to keep the yards steady. A boom also appears to have
been used in this case. If a ship gripe too much, says Manwayring,
then the mizzen was stowed, for otherwise “she will never keep out of
the wind.” The mizzen was sometimes used when at anchor to back the
ship astern in order to keep her from fouling her anchor on the turn
of the tide.

Perhaps in the mind of the general reader the one type of ship
of this age that he has any vague knowledge of is the galleon.
He associates her with the Armada and with the Spanish nation
exclusively. He has not forgotten that he learned in the days of
his youth that the ships of the Armada were of enormous size, and
that the English ships were victorious because they were small and
nimble. It is perfectly true to say that our vessels were light and
comparatively handy, but we must not omit to throw into the balance
the superiority of our seamanship and gunnery, as we pointed out just
now. The English had a natural taste for the sea; the Spaniards, in
spite of all their trading and exploring across the ocean, had for
it an equal distaste. They were admittedly bad seamen.[84] I am not
expressing an opinion but asserting a fact, and this was as much the
cause of their defeat as anything else. But the English ships were
not particularly small. At least seven were of between 600 and 1100
tons. There were in the whole Spanish Armada only four ships larger
than our _Triumph_, whilst of the English merchantmen the _Leicester_
and the _Merchant Royal_ were each of 400 tons.

Nor did the word “galleon” necessarily denote a Spanish ship. It is
perfectly true that the Spanish Armada contained a number of cumbrous
galleons, but it must not be inferred from this that a galleon was
necessarily clumsy. In point of fact, Spain was the last of the great
maritime nations to adopt the galleon. In England the galleon denoted
a vessel built expressly for war, as distinguished from the adapted
merchantmen. She was essentially a ship built with finer lines, and
in every way smarter than the ordinary vessel. The type had been
first introduced into the English service by Henry VIII. long before
Spain had adopted it, although, as we mentioned earlier, there was
considerable confusion as to the actual names. Thus Henry VIII.’s
ships were classed as “great ships,” “galleasses,” and “galleys,”
while for a long time, both in England and France, the galleon was
called indifferently “galleon,” “galleasse,” “galley,” and “galliot.”
By the outbreak of the Spanish war practically all the men-of-war in
our country were galleons, and were thus described by foreigners.
Nevertheless, as Mr. Corbett points out,[85] English seamen
never took kindly to the word galleon. They continued to confuse
“galleasse” and “galleon” in describing the ships of foreigners. But
for all that English shipwrights understood perfectly the technical
characteristics, and in official building programmes after the
middle of Elizabeth’s reign the three terms “galleon,” “galleasse,”
and “galley” appear correctly. The galleon, as Mr. Masefield well
describes her, was roughly the prototype of the ship of the line,
the galleasse the prototype of the frigate, and the pinnace of the
sloop or corvette. The galleon was low in the waist with a square
forecastle and a high quarter-deck just abaft the mainmast, rising
to a poop above the quarter-deck. Reckoning upwards, the two decks,
according to Manwayring, were called lower orlop or first orlop, and
the next the second orlop. But if a ship had three decks they never
called the uppermost—the third—by the name of orlop, but simply
“upper deck.” The wooden bulkheads that separated the stern from the
waist were pierced with holes for small quick-firing guns.

The length of the galleon was three times that of her beam, whereas
the ordinary merchantman was only twice her own beam, thus preserving
the old distinction that we saw in classical time existing between
the long ship and the round ship. Yet the newer class of Elizabethan
merchantman was getting longer, influenced by the experience gained
on the long voyages across the Atlantic. It had been in Italy, the
great home of maritime matters in earlier days, that the galleon had
first been built. The galleon was in fact the child of necessity.
The Mediterranean possessed the galley-type from very early times
as we have already seen; she had, as we have also seen, the “round”
merchant type. But as time went on a demand arose for a compromise
between the two. Able to hold as much cargo, and more, than the old
rounships, yet not utterly helpless like them in calms and narrow
waters, the galleons were yet to be of such a kind as to be capable
of acting with the galleys in war time. So they were made not as
long but with more beam than the galleys, with a built-up structure
fore and aft and—let us note this carefully—though they were sailing
ships they had at first auxiliary oar-propulsion. The smaller English
galleons also retained their oars for a long time.

[Illustration: FIG. 52. THE SPANISH ARMADA COMING UP CHANNEL.]

The immediate ancestor of the English galleon was the Italian
merchantman that traded between Venice and London. This had three
masts with a square sail on the foremast, but lateen on the main and
mizzen. She carried also oars as auxiliaries. Afterwards, by degrees
the oars were dispensed with, so that by the end of the sixteenth
century the galleon was a purely sailing vessel with sometimes two
and sometimes three decks, while the galleasse had oars as well. Her
special claim was that she was both faster and more weatherly than
the older type of warship. English shipwrights understood a galleasse
to be similar to a galleon but with more length in proportion to her
beam, though strictly speaking the galleasse should designate a large
ship with high freeboard, using oars as well as sails. The ships,
however, that fitted this description were known to them by the name
of “bastard galleasses.” The galleasse was sometimes flush-decked
and minus both poop and forecastle and never so highly charged
(_i.e._, with such high decks at stern and bow) as the galleon. A
good illustration will be found in the foreground of Fig. 52, which
contains two of these with their oars out. This picture represents
the Spanish Armada coming up channel when first sighted off the
Lizard. The illustration has been taken from one of the plates in
“The Tapestry Hangings of the House of Lords,” engraved by John
Pine, London, in 1739. If the reader will pardon a short digression
it may not be out of place to say a few words in explanation of these
engravings.

After he had defeated the Armada in 1588, Lord Howard of Effingham,
later raised to an earldom, determined to commemorate the victory by
depicting the scenes he had so recently passed through. Accordingly
Hendrik Corneliszoon Vroom, who had at this time obtained a European
reputation as a marine artist, was invited from Haarlem to paint the
pictures. From these Francis Speiring, an eminent craftsman, wove
the designs into tapestry. Howard, or, as he now was, the Earl of
Nottingham, sold them in his old age to James I., who hung them in
the precincts of the House of Lords. When, during the Commonwealth,
the House of Lords was abolished, the tapestries were fitted into
brown wooden frames and hung on the walls of the chamber which had
been used for the Upper House. Here they remained until the House was
burned down in 1834, when the ten tapestries perished. Fortunately,
however, even in the inartistic eighteenth century, an artist, John
Pine, and a friend of Hogarth, had the inspiration to reproduce them
by engraving, But for this we should lack what is a most valuable
record. It is so easy to fall into inaccuracies a century after an
event, but since Pine copied from the tapestries, and the tapestries
were executed under Howard’s own supervision, there cannot be much
room left for anything incorrect in respect of the ships. Howard had
fought against the Spanish ships night and day in that memorable
month of July, and had every opportunity of noting the rigging and
lines of his enemy’s vessels, so that when he had left the sea and,
not unnaturally, devoted his attention to his own memorial, he would
be the ideal person to see that accuracy was insisted upon. These
engravings are still to be picked up occasionally in some of the
London print-sellers, but the illustration here given is from the
collection in the Print Room of the British Museum.[86]

The reader who is familiar with Elizabethan literature must have
found considerable confusion existing in his mind as to what a
“pinnesse” really was. Let us say at once, then, that the name was
indiscriminately given to two distinct classes of craft. One class
was a kind of galleasse, only smaller; that is to say, she relied on
both oars and sails. She was a sea-going ship and decked. Under this
heading came also row-barges, and at various times also galleots,
galleys, frigates, and shallops. The point to notice is that this
class comprised really big craft. The other “pinnesses” were ships’
boats. The modern use of the word pinnace expresses pretty clearly
its relation to the mother ship. The greatest critics are unable to
define exactly what a “bark” was, but from an early Venetian print I
gather that she was smaller than the prevailing Mediterranean galley.
At the same time the word seems to have included also vessels ranging
from fifty, to a hundred and fifty tons. Thus they were sometimes
small ships, and sometimes large pinnaces. Whilst Elizabethan seamen
included all sailing vessels fit to take their place in the line of
battle under the generic term of ship, the shipwrights divided them
according to their design into “ships,” “galleons,” “galleasses”;
“barks” being a convenient term for vessels of smaller ability.

[Illustration: FIG. 53. THE “BLACK PINNESSE,” WHICH BROUGHT HOME THE
BODY OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY.]

The “brigandine” or “brigantine” was a Mediterranean type of small
galley, rowed by its own fighting crew and without slaves. Sometimes
she was classed as a “pinnesse” and sometimes as a bark, but never
as a galley. Whether or not she possessed sails she was primarily a
rowed boat. The illustration in Fig. 53 represents a big sea-going
pinnesse as distinct from the ship’s boat. This was the vessel
that carried home the body of Sir Philip Sydney, and is taken from
“Sequitur celebritas et pompa funeris...” (of Sir Philip Sydney)
by Thomas Lant, printed in 1587. The Elizabethan deep-sea pinnaces
were from eighty to fifteen tons. The present illustration shows
the vessel with her waist-cloths rigged up to prevent boarding, and
with nettings[87] drawn over the waist to intercept the missiles
dropped from the fighting-tops of the enemy. Mr. Masefield says that
this cloth was of canvas two bolts (three feet six inches) deep. It
was gaily painted with designs of red, yellow, and the Tudor green
and white. It was of no protection against the enemy’s guns, yet it
helped the sail trimmers on board from being aimed at. But against
the enemy’s arrows sent from the tops it was efficacious, for though
they penetrated the texture they were caught. We have already called
attention to the additional protection of the shields or pavesses
that ran around the outside of the deck.

[Illustration: FIG. 54. A GALLEON OF THE TIME OF ELIZABETH.]

The illustration in Fig. 54 shows a galleon with decorated sails, a
practice that died out about the close of Elizabeth’s reign.[88] This
decoration was effected by stitching on to the canvas cut-out pieces
of cloth with twine. Most of the sails were woven in Portsmouth
on hand looms, and the stuff was of good quality. But during the
reign of James II. when the Huguenots took refuge in England, among
the many new trades which the settlers brought over was that of
the manufacture of sail-cloth. A French refugee, Bonhomme, who had
settled down at Ipswich, taught the secret of its manufacture.
Previously, England had imported her sail-cloth from France. The
new factory was assisted in every possible way, but was finally
destroyed by French agents, who bribed the artisans to return once
more to France. Another factory was set up in London during the reign
of William III., but as late as the time of George I. sail-cloth was
imported from abroad.

As to the rigging of Elizabethan ships: the shrouds of the fore and
main masts led outside the ship to chains to which they were made
fast. The platforms in the “chains” of the ships of this time were of
no small size as we shall see when we come to consider the Spanish
vessels. The shrouds of the mizzen and bonaventure were set up
usually from inside the bulwarks on deck. The fighting-tops were of
elm, being entered through a lubber’s hole in the floor. Contemporary
prints show sheaves of arrows projecting from the tops. At a later
date light guns were placed here, but as this necessitated the use
of lighted matches there was always the risk of setting fire to the
sails. The shrouds and stays were of thick nine-stranded hemp. We see
from old prints of this time that those parts, as for instance where
the foresail came into contact with the bowsprit, which were liable
to suffer from chafing were protected by matting made of rope or
white line plaited, and then tarred. Masts were made of pine or fir.
In dirty weather the fore-yard and fore-topsail yard could be sent
on deck. Parrals of course kept the yard to the mast. There is not
so very much difference between the sailor language of Elizabeth’s
time and that in use on board a modern sailing ship. Mr. Bullen in
an essay on “Shakespeare and the Sea” reminds us that “Elizabethan
England spoke a language which was far more studded with sea-terms
than that which we speak ashore to-day.” In such plays as _Twelfth
Night_, _Comedy of Errors_, _Macbeth_, _King Henry VI._, and _The
Tempest_, we have instances of this. Thus in Act III. Scene I. of
the latter the first sailor commands the other to “slack the bolins
there.” Modern bowlines are slight ropes leading from forward to
keep the leach or weather edge of the courses flat and rigid in
light winds when on a wind. But in olden times the bowline was of
far greater importance, as we have seen, and led well out on to the
bowsprit. Not merely the lower course, but topsail and topgallant
sails possessed them.

When the English fleet opposed the Armada it consisted of 197 vessels
made up as follows: 34 of Elizabeth’s own royal ships, 34 merchant
vessels, 30 ships and barks paid by the City of London, 33 ships
and barks (with 15 victuallers not reckoned in the total number),
23 coasters varying from 160 to 35 tons, 20 other coasters and 23
voluntary ships. Of the merchant ships the _Galleon Leicester_ and
the _Merchant Royal_ are each given as of 400 tons and carrying 160
men. The smallest was the small caravel of 30 tons with 20 men. But
we have spoken at some length of the English ships. Let us now turn
to consider the ships of other nations of this period.

The Armada consisted of 130 vessels if we add up the list given in
Hakluyt. This number was made up of the following types: galleons,
patasses or pataches, galleasses, zabras, galleys and hulks. Besides
these there were 20 “caravels rowed with oares, being appointed
to Performe necessary services unto the greater ships,” making a
total of 150. The tonnage of the fleet came to 60,000. There were
64 galleons “of an huge bignesse” and “so high that they resembled
great castles,” but in attacking ability “farre inferiour unto the
English and Dutch ships, which can with great dexteritie weild and
turne themselves at all assayes.” It was this “bignesse” and the
high castles at bow and stern that caused the prevailing fallacy to
arise that the Armada ships were far larger than ours. The former
were very high but very short on the keel, and in consequence equally
unseaworthy. Ours were, as we pointed out above, long on the keel
and not highly “charged” with castles. The Hakluyt account says the
upperworks of the galleons were so thick and strong as to resist
musket shot. The lower part of the hull and its timbers also were
“out of measure strong, being framed of plankes and ribs foure or
five foote in thicknesse, insomuch that no bullets could pierce them,
but such as were discharged hard at hand: which afterward prooved
true, for a great number of bullets were founde to sticke fast within
the massie substance of those thicke plankes. Great and well-pitched
cables were twined about the masts of their shippes, to strengthen
them against the battery of shot.”

The galleasses “were of such bigness, that they contained within them
chambers, chapels, turrets, pulpits, and other commodities of great
houses. The galliasses were rowed with great oares, their being in
eche one of them 300 slaves for the same purpose, and were able to
do great service with the force of their ordinance.[89] All these
together with the residue aforenamed were furnished and beautified
with trumpets, streamers, banners, war-like ensignes, and other such
like ornaments.” The various vessels also carried 12,000 pipes of
fresh water and plentiful supplies of bacon, cheese, biscuit, fish,
rice, beans, peas, oil, vinegar and wine. Among their stores were
candles, lanterns, hemp, ox-hides and lead sheathing to be used to
stop the holes that should be made by the enemy’s guns.

The Spanish ships had been built unnecessarily strong by very heavy
scantlings. They were, according to Mr. Oppenheim,[90] of light
draught with broad floors and were both crank and leewardy. The
seams opened in spite of the strength with which they had been put
together. They were bolted with iron spikes and it was not long
before these ships became “nail-sick.” Their masts and spars were too
heavy and their standing rigging too weak; in fact, whilst the demand
had to be met for big ocean-going ships, the Spanish shipwrights and
naval architects were not sufficiently advanced at this time to deal
with such enormous masses of material.

[Illustration: FIG. 55. SPANISH GALLEONS.]

We have mentioned above that Spain was the last of the great
maritime Powers to adopt the galleon. In Fig. 55 the reader will
see a representation of her galleons. It was not till about 1550,
Mr. Oppenheim states, that the great galleon was introduced. The
print here reproduced is in the British Museum, and the date the
authorities assign to it is about 1560, so that we have every reason
for supposing that this illustration is a correct one. The reader
will at once notice the high-charged stern immediately abaft the
mainmast. The Spanish ships were notorious for their wall-like sides;
and for the height to which the bowsprit was “steeved,” both of which
details will be noticed in the illustration before us. We mentioned
in this chapter that in her origin the galleon owed something to the
galley. Now, one of the chief characteristics of the galley type was
the ram which was handed down from ancient times. Here, then, in this
picture will be seen the survival of the ram affixed to the galleon.
But it is here no longer entirely for the purpose of attacking the
enemy’s ships but for boarding the fore-tack when by the wind. The
bowlines are clearly seen on the vessel to the right of the print,
leading from both the foresail to the bowsprit and from the mainsail.
On both the fore and main courses, the martnets or leach lines are
shown very clearly in the print; it is a little difficult to indicate
these so clearly in reproduction. Notice, too, that both foresail
and main have got both bonnet and drabbler laced on. Below the
bowsprit is seen the spritsail. The main-mizzen topsail is stowed,
and the bonaventure does not carry a topsail above her lateen. The
under portion of the hull of these Spanish ships was painted white,
but ochre was frequently used for the stern. They had lids to their
portholes, nettings and waist-cloths, and “blinders” to avert the
arrows and musket fire. The armament of the Spanish merchantman was,
in the case of vessels of 100 tons, four heavy iron guns and eight
hand guns aside as well as eight other hand guns; but after about
1550 the armament became heavier.

[Illustration: FIG. 56. SPANISH TREASURE-FRIGATE OF ABOUT 1590.]

We pass now to speak of the Spanish treasure-frigates. These were an
important class of vessel during the last quarter of the sixteenth
century. The length on their upper deck was nearly four times the
beam, and they possessed considerable speed. They were not properly
cargo ships, but built in order to carry the valuable treasures from
the Spanish Main across the Atlantic to Spain. Specially designed
by Pero Menendez Marquez about the year 1590, to get across from
the West Indies with the utmost despatch, they carried 150 men with
soldiers and marines. Hakluyt[91] contains “certaine Spanish letters
intercepted by shippes ... containing many secrets touching” South
America and the West Indies. The extremely interesting drawing in
Fig. 56 was sent home by an English spy and is now preserved in the
Records Office, by whose permission it is reproduced here. This
illustration shows very clearly that she had evolved from a galley.
She has three masts of which the main and mizzen are seen to possess
topmasts that lower. These two masts also have topsails. The yards
of the mainsail and foresail have also affixed to their extremities
crescent-shaped shear-hooks for tearing the enemy’s rigging. The
forestay and foretopmast stay are well indicated. The mizzen has
a lateen as usual, and the ram still survives. The artist has also
shown the netting mentioned just now. As to the hull, we see from
the spy’s handwriting that she was “104 foote by the keele” and “34
foote in breadth.” She has three tiers of guns, these being mounted
also forward, so as to be able to fire straight ahead. She appears
to have as many as six decks aft—main, upper, spar and four poop
decks. The greatest precaution was taken by the Spanish government
to ensure seaworthiness in the ships leaving their shores for the
West Indies. Three times they had to be inspected before being
allowed to set forth: once when empty, then when laden, and lastly,
immediately before departure. No cargo was allowed to be carried on
deck except water, provisions and passengers’ luggage. In the huge
“channels” which were mentioned above were stowed such commodities as
wool, small casks of water, and straw. Mr. Oppenheim mentions that
an ancient “Plimsoll” mark was ordered by the inspectors in the year
1618, although the Genoese statutes had ordained this as early as
1330.

When in 1592 the English captured the “huge carak” called the
_Madre de Dios_ belonging to Portugal, there were found stowed in
her capacious channels about 200 tons of goods. This will give some
idea of the extent to which these channels grew in size. Hakluyt
contains a long and detailed account of the capture and dimensions
of this carack, which was the largest the English seamen had yet
encountered. She was 1600 tons, having between 600 and 700 souls
aboard, besides her rich cargo of jewels and spices and silks and
other goods. She was eventually brought into Dartmouth, and is said
never again to have left the harbour. When surveyed, Hakluyt says
that she measured from beak-head to the stern, 165 feet, extreme
beam, 46 feet 10 inches. Her draught when laden had been 31 feet,
which, being about the draught of one of the largest modern liners,
would seem exaggerated did not the account definitely state that the
survey was exactly made by “one M. Robert Adams, a man in his faculty
of excellent skill.” When, after being lightened, she was taken into
Dartmouth, she drew only 26 feet, which is still enormous. Her decks
at the stern comprised a main orlop and three closed decks. At the
bows she had a forecastle and a spar-deck “of two floors apiece.” The
length of her keel was 100 feet, of the mainmast 121 feet, while the
circuit at the partners was 10 feet 7 inches, the main yard being
106 feet long. The following year another enormous carack was fired
and sunk by the English. Her name was _Las Cinque Llagas_ (“The Five
Wounds”), and she is said by some to have been bigger even than the
_Madre de Dios_.

[Illustration: FIG. 57. MEDITERRANEAN GALLEY.]

One of the most memorable of naval battles was that which was fought
on the Adriatic Sea in 1571. On the one side were the allied forces
of Venice, Spain, and the Papal States: on the other, the Turks who
were defeated. Galleys and galleasses played an important part in
obtaining this victory. To what development the galley had attained
since the times of the early Greeks and Romans will be seen in Figs.
57 and 58. But in spite of all that history had added to them, it
is surprising how little they differ in essentials. Fig. 57 has
been sketched from a model in the South Kensington Museum. It is
quite old, and is said to have belonged to the Knights of Malta.
Her dimensions if built to scale would work out at about 165 feet
long, by 22 feet beam, with extreme beam from gunwale to gunwale,
31 feet. The depth would be 9·9 feet, and the number of sweeps 44.
In the United Service Museum there is also an instructive Maltese
galley model of a large size which, though of the eighteenth century,
differed so little as to be closely similar to the excellent
illustration which we give in Fig. 58. This has been taken from
an important publication, of the beginning of the seventeenth
century, by Joseph Furttenbach, entitled “Architectura Navalis,”
printed at Ulm in 1629. As will be seen, each oar is still worked by
a gang of men. At the stern the captain sits with his knights by his
side, while at the extreme stern is the pilot. Along the _corsia_
or gangway down the ship walk two men with long poles with which to
beat the lazy oarsmen. The principal armament was carried in the bows
and so was unable to be used for broadside fire. Notice also the
survival of the trumpeters. The length of this vessel was 169 feet
from beak to stern, with an extreme beam of about 20 feet. The word
_antennæ_ is still found at this time as applied to the yards. In
spite of the handiness of the galley and her consequent popularity
in the Mediterranean, she was thoroughly despised by Elizabethan
seamen. Much more after their own heart was the _nave_ or ship shown
in Fig. 59, and also taken out of Furttenbach. The reader will notice
a wise restriction of high-charged structures. This vessel, in fact,
shows a steady improvement in naval architecture. Thus, besides the
lateen mizzen she carries a square topsail above, while in addition
to the spritsail seen furled to its yard on the bowsprit, there has
now been added a sprit topsail whose yard is seen to hoist up a sprit
topmast. When we compare this vessel with the wooden walls of the
eighteenth century, she will be seen to be wonderfully modern. The
last traces of crude mediævalism are disappearing. Science in design
has fast begun to supplant rule of thumb and guess-work based only on
ignorance. Skill has taken the place of inexperience in the work of
the shipwright, and both design and construction have been based on
the knowledge obtained not only in long and tedious voyages, but in
the brisk fighting between nation and nation and privateer against
treasure ship and trader. In the same volume of Furttenbach a useful
plan of the lines of this ship is given, from which we see that
whilst the mainmast is stepped at the keelson, the fore and mizzen
are stepped on the main deck.

[Illustration: FIG. 58. AN EARLY SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY GALLEY.]

A favourite vessel with the Turkish pirates who infested the
Mediterranean at this time was the _carramuzzal_, classed as a
brigandine. Her sail, says Hakluyt, consisted of “a misen or
triangle” sail, that is of course a lateen. She is shown in
Furttenbach purposely without rigging or sails so as to indicate
clearly her method of firing. The _tartana_, with her lateen sail,
sometimes seen in contemporary prints, was a Mediterranean fishing
vessel.

[Illustration: FIG. 59. A FULL-RIGGED SHIP OF THE EARLY SEVENTEENTH
CENTURY.]

In spite of the great interest manifested by England and other
nations recently in Arctic exploration, let us not forget that the
first true polar voyage was undertaken during the reign of Elizabeth
by Dutchmen. Their object was to find the North-East passage to
China, and terrible were the privations and perils endured. The
reader who has become familiar with Franklin’s, McClintock’s,
Nansen’s, Scott’s, Shackleton’s, and other explorers’ travels to the
poles, is advised to compare the experiences which these Dutchmen
endured. Many of them have their counterpart in the accounts written
by modern explorers. Thus one of the ships was tilted over to a
dangerous angle, though ultimately righted. Once one of the ships was
caught in a driving pack of ice, and suddenly freeing herself three
of her crew who were on the ice had barely time to be drawn quickly
up the ship’s sides and saved from drowning. These and the other
incidents mentioned here are all delightfully illustrated in “A true
account of the three new unheard of and strange journeys in ships
... in the years 1594, 1595 and 1596,” by Levinus Hulsius, printed
at Frankfort in 1612. The type of ship used for this expedition
appears to be the galleon. The rigging and sails, the lacing holes
for the drabbler and bonnet, the topsails “goared” out to the clews,
and the bowlines, are all shown. One illustration proves that when
close-hauled these ships stowed both spritsail and sprit topsail.

Unhappily for the navigators, but luckily for us, their big ship
stuck fast in the ice and remained there. Anxious, therefore, to
return to Holland with the approach of summer, they determined to
attempt the journey in open boats. Now much as we sympathise with
the sufferings of these brave men, this unfortunate incident of an
abandoned ship has given us a picture of the men engaged in adding
raised gunwales to their small boats and afterwards sailing across
the sea. Hitherto in this history of the sailing ship, except when we
spoke of the lateen, we have always had in mind the squaresail rig.
Its virtues never grow old when utilised for big ships and deep-sea
sailing. But for small craft and for handiness there is nothing to
beat what is known as the fore and aft rig. Just exactly when the
fore and aft rig originated is not possible to determine, although
its rise and influence have been since very powerful, especially
in the modern yacht and fishing vessel. But it may be taken as
practically certain that the sloop rig (by which I mean a vessel
with a peaked mainsail and a triangular headsail), like many other
good points of ship development, came from the Low Countries during
the first half of the sixteenth century. In a map[92] sent in 1527
from Seville, in Spain, by M. Robert Thorne to Doctor Ley we see a
Dutch-like sloop depicted. A map of Ireland of 1567 contains two
vessels of this rig. H. C. Vroom, whom we referred to above as the
designer of the House of Lords tapestries, painted a picture entitled
_The Arrival at Flushing of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester_, 1586.
The date of Vroom’s birth was 1566. Now this picture shows about
half a dozen small vessels rigged exactly like the small boat given
in Hulsius. This rig consists of a triangular sail hoisted up the
forestay, and with a mainsail having no boom or gaff, but a large
sprit across; in fact, exactly resembling the rig of the Thames
“stumpey” barge to-day. It was only at a later date that the jib was
added to the foresail and a topsail to the sprit mainsail. The other
small boat given in Hulsius is shown square-rigged, with one course
on her main and the same on her fore, but the latter mast is stepped
very far forward and right at the bows. The design of the latter
boat’s hull shows the remnant of the Viking influence, which is not
obliterated even in the modern Dutch schuyt. It should be mentioned
also that the cutter-rigged boat in Hulsius just alluded to has a
yard-tackle coming down from the top of the mast to about the middle
of the sprit, while from the peak of the sail two vangs lead down
aft, just as in the modern barge.

Before we close this eventful period we must not omit to mention the
East India Company, which ranks after the Armada and the Battle of
Lepanto as the most important item to be reckoned with in connection
with the development of the sailing ship. Formed by a company of
merchant-adventurers to trade to the East Indies, Elizabeth granted
its charter in 1600: its first fleet consisted of the _Red Dragon_
(600 tons and 200 men), the _Hector_ (300 tons and 100 men), the
_Ascension_ (200 tons and 80 men), and the _Susan_ (240 tons and 80
men), together with a deep-sea pinnesse of 100 tons with 40 men.

The Tudor period had seen the most wonderful innovations and
developments in connection with the sailing ship. Under no period had
it altered so much or in so short a space of time. Not, indeed, until
we come to the middle of the nineteenth century did the sea witness
such original craft voyaging across its surface. But let us see now
what happened during the reigns of the Stuarts and their successors.




CHAPTER VII.

FROM THE ACCESSION OF JAMES I. TO THE CLOSE OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.


One of the most lucrative, if exciting, professions which was far
from unpopular during Elizabeth’s reign was that of fitting out a
small fleet of two or three ships, roving about the seas, especially
off the coast of Spain, attacking and, when fortunate, capturing a
ship homeward bound with treasure from the West Indies. In spite of
the distinguished Englishmen who were engaged in this, in spite of
the excellent training it afforded to our seamen, it can only be
condemned as illegal and piratical, although for a long time it was
winked at. James I., however, on his accession determined to take
away from it any semblance of approval. He did his best to bring an
end to these marauding expeditions, but for all that they went on
persistently though not overtly. Captain John Smith, a distinguished
sailor of this time, who was also the first Governor of Virginia,
has left us a lively account depicting an imaginary engagement to
illustrate the working of a ship of this date. It is to be found in
“An Accidence or The Pathway to Experience necessary for all young
seamen ... written by Captaine John Smith sometimes Governour of
Virginia and Admirall of New England,” printed in London in 1626. As
it shows in actual use the very details of the ship and equipment
we mentioned in the last chapter, I cannot refrain from quoting at
length the following graphic description. I give it just as it was
printed, substituting only modern spelling and punctuation:

“A sail! How stands she? To windward, or leeward? Set him by the
compass. He stands right ahead, or on the weather bow, or lee bow.
Out with all your sails: a steady man to the helm. Sit close to keep
her steady. Give chase or fetch him up. He holds his own. No: we
gather on him. Out goeth his flag and pennants or streamers, also his
colours, his waist-cloths and top-armings. He furles and slings his
mainsail. In goes his spritsail and mizzen. He makes ready his close
fights[93] fore and after: well, we shall reach him by and by. What?
Is all ready? Yea, yea. Every man to his charge. Dowse your topsail.
Salute him for the sea—hail him. ‘Whence your ship?’ ‘Of Spain:
whence is yours?’ ‘Of England.’ ‘Are you merchants or men of war?’
‘We are of the sea.’ He waves us to leeward for the King of Spain and
keeps his luff. Give him a chase piece, a broad side and run ahead.
Make ready to tack about, give him your stern pieces. Be yare[94] at
helm: hail him with a noise of trumpets.

“We are shot through and through, and between wind and water. Try
the pumps. Master, let us breathe and refresh a little. Sling a
man overboard to stop the leak. Done, done! Is all ready again?
Yea, yea. Bear up close with him. With all your great and small
shot charge him. Board him on his weather quarter. Lash fast your
grappling irons and sheer off. Then run stem-lines the midships.
Board and board[95] or thwart the hawse. We are foul on each other.
The ship’s on fire. Cut anything to get clear, and smother the fire
with wet cloths. We are clear, and the fire out. God be thanked. The
day is spent, let us consult. Surgeon, look to the wounded, wind
up the slain. With each a weight or bullet at his head and feet.
Give three pieces for their funerals. Swabber, make clean the ship.
Purser, record their names. Watch, be vigilant to keep your berth
to windward, and that we lose him not in the night. Gunners, spunge
your ordinances. Soldiers, scour your pieces. Carpenters, about your
leaks. Boatswain and the rest, repair the sails and shrouds. Cook,
see you observe your directions against the morning watch. Boy!
Hulloa, master, hulloa! Is the kettle boiled? Yea. Boatswain, call up
the men to prayer and breakfast.

“Boy, fetch my cellar of bottles. A health to you all fore and aft.
Courage, my hearts, for a fresh charge. Master, lay him aboard luff
for luff. Midshipmen, see the tops and yards well manned with stones
and brass balls. To enter them at shrouds and every squadron else
at their best advantage, sound drums and trumpets and St. George
for England. They hang out a flag of truce. Stand in with him, haul
him amain, abaft, or take in his flag. Strike their sails and come
aboard, with the captain, purser and gunner, with your commission,
cocket or bills of loading. Out goes their boat. They are launched
from the ship side. Entertain them with a general cry. God save the
captain, and all the company, with the trumpets sounding. Examine
them in particular, and then conclude your conditions with feasting,
freedom or punishment, as you find occasion. Otherwise if you
surprise him or enter perforce, you may stow the men, rifle, pillage
or sack and cry a prize.”

Perhaps we may be allowed to add a word further in explanation of
the duties of the officers taken also from this little book. The
captain was not necessarily a seaman. His authority was to command
the whole company and keep them in order. The lieutenant was to
assist the captain and—hence the word—in his absence to take his
place. The captain also directed a fight, while the master was really
the sailing master and gave orders to the sailors, taking charge of
the ship as long as she was on the high seas: but “when they make
land” the pilot “doth take charge of the ship till he bring her to
harbour.” The duties of the sailors included hoisting sails, getting
the tacks aboard, hauling the bowlines and steering the ship. The
Yonkers were the young men whose work was to take in the topsails,
furl and sling the mainsail, to do all the bowsing or tricing, and
take their turn at the helm. In the setting of watches, the master
chose one and the mate the other.

As to the ship herself we find that the planking of a vessel of
400 tons was to be four inches thick, ships of 300 tons to have
three-inch planking, and small ships two-inch, but never less than
this. Between the beams of the deck and the orlop there were to be
six feet of head-room, and ten ports on each side upon the lower
orlop. A flagstaff was over the poop. A jeer-capstan was only to
hoist the sails of big ships, being raised by hand on small vessels.
Smith mentions using in a “faire gaile your studding sayles,” and
confirms the use of the mizzen topsail. One interesting item that
he enumerates is obviously what we now know by the name of drogue
or sea-anchor. Smith calls it a “drift sail.” Manwayring describes
the drift sail as “a sail used under water, being veered out right
ahead, having sheets to it, the use whereof is to keep a ship’s head
right upon the sea in a storme. Also it is good, where a ship drives
in fast with a current, to hinder her driving in so fast, but it is
most commonly used by fishermen in the North Seas.” Smith mentions
also the cross-jack yard as being now in use.

During James I.’s reign the East India Company, encouraged by the
King, endowed with a new charter, began to flourish considerably.
An important new vessel was built for them called the _Trade’s
Increase_, but she was careened whilst abroad at the end of her first
voyage, in order to have some repairs made to her hull. She fell
over on to her side and was burnt by the Javanese. Her size was 1100
tons, and the loss of so large a vessel in those days was a severe
blow. This was not the only occasion in which an English ship was
thrown away in this manner. Manwayring, writing of the contemporary
practice of careening, says that if a ship wanted attention below
the waterline, as for instance her seams to be caulked, when the
vessel could not be conveniently put ashore and in ports where the
tide does not dry right out, the method was to take out most of the
ballast and guns. Then by her side was brought a lower ship to which
tackles were attached, by means of which the larger vessel was hauled
down on to her side, care being taken at the same time not to strain
the masts too much. Some ships which were not naturally top-heavy
did not careen without difficulty, but English ships, having still
fairly high decks, careened somewhat easily. The Dutch, through
the shallowness of the water off their coasts, could not have a
deep draught, and in consequence their decks were not built high.
And because they were the reverse of top-heavy it was with great
difficulty that a Dutchman was careened.

[Illustration: FIG. 60. THE “PRINCE ROYAL.”]

In 1603 James built three new ships for the Navy, and five years
later the _Ark Royal_ of Elizabeth’s reign was rebuilt and renamed
the _Anne Royal_. In 1608 the keel was laid for the _Prince Royal_,
a ship of 1200 tons, whose appearance will be found in Fig. 60.
This illustration is from a picture in the Trinity House, and is
here reproduced by kind permission of the Elder Brethren. She was
the largest and finest ship that had ever been designed for the
English Navy, and was the finest man-of-war of her time. She was
both built and designed under the supervision of Phineas Pett,
Master of Arts of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, a distinguished
member of a distinguished family which, from the reign of Henry
VIII. right down to William and Mary kept up a continuous line of
naval builders and architects. An unsuccessful attempt was made to
launch her on September 24, 1610, when it was found that the dock
head at Woolwich was too narrow to allow her to get through. She
was eventually launched successfully, however, at a later date. She
was a three-decker in the sense that she had two full batteries
and an upper deck armed. Gorgeously decorated with carvings and
paintings the _Prince Royal_ was double-planked, and with but slight
modifications, chiefly in respect of her decoration, would not be
dissimilar to the ships built at the beginning of the nineteenth
century. Indeed so slight, comparatively, were the developments that
took place between this and the time of the Battle of Trafalgar that
the ships of the early Stuarts would not have looked out of place
among the ships of Nelson’s fleet. Between now and the close of the
eighteenth century the similarity between men-of-war and merchantmen
was so close as to make distinction practically impossible. That,
too, will account for the fact of the English in the foregoing
imaginary encounter by Smith asking whether the Spanish vessel were a
merchant or man-of-war. We have made so many changes between the two
classes of ships since then that it is a little difficult at first to
realise this.

In the design of the _Prince Royal_, many of the old-fashioned
conventionalities went by the board, and, as is always the case with
a daring innovation, hostile criticisms were not scarce. Some of
these, however, were justified, for when a Commission was appointed
to report on the design, it was found that more than double the
number of loads of timber were used than had been estimated for.
The _Prince Royal_ had a figurehead representing the King’s son on
horseback, after whom she was named. Her dimensions were: length
of keel, 114 feet; beam, 44 feet. She was pierced for 64 guns and
carried 55. This number was restricted in order to guard against the
excessive top-weight. In action the vacant portholes would be filled
by guns from the opposite side of the ship. The reader will notice
how close the similarity is between the hull of this ship and that of
the merchantman in Fig. 59, of this period, taken from Furttenbach.
The disappearance of the high poop and forecastles is particularly
obvious. Three lanterns were carried at the poop, and subsequently
this vessel was cut down smaller. At the beginning of the seventeenth
century the lowest decks of ships carried the bread and other
store-rooms, the cables, the officers’ cabins as well as some of the
crew. The second deck was about 6 feet above and pierced with nine
ports aside.

By 1624, James’ navy contained four ships of the first rank, viz.,
the _Prince Royal_, the _Bear_, the _Merhonour_ and the old _Ark
Royal_, now called the _Anne Royal_. Besides these there were fifteen
of the second rank, nine of the third, and four of the fourth, as
well as some hoys. It is curious to find, too, the existence still,
in the navy, of four galleys. They were a source of constant expense,
being never used now that the value of big ships had been realised,
and they were eventually ordered to be sold out of the service.

Charles I. took the liveliest interest in the Navy, and under him
naval architecture continued its progression. The first additions
he was responsible for were not of big ships, but of the sea-going
pinnesses of about 50 tons and under, equipped with both oars and
sails. They were square-rigged, three-masted, and had two decks.
They were, however, sparred and ordnanced far too heavily. In spite
of the fact that England had built a few large ships during the last
century, she had not been conspicuously active in this respect. Far
easier and cheaper had it been to capture the pick of the enemy’s
fleet, and then to refit them and turn the prizes into English
men-of-war. But this lethargy was beginning to disappear. Pett was
one of the chief influences in regard to this, and it was he who,
having closely studied the lines of a fine French ship lying in
British waters, learned some of the improvements that afterwards were
embodied in the ships of our country.

[Illustration: FIG. 61. THE “SOVEREIGN OF THE SEAS.” BUILT IN 1637.]

The _Sovereign of the Seas_ in Fig. 61, reproduced from an engraving
in the British Museum, after the picture by Van der Velde, owes her
design to Pett also. The reader will see how much nearer his craft
approaches to the old wooden walls of the eighteenth century. Built
in 1637, this vessel was for the next generation the admiration and
envy of foreign nations. Like the _Prince Royal_ at a later date,
she was cut down in 1652 to a two-decker, having been found somewhat
crank. But as originally constructed, the _Sovereign of the Seas_ was
a three-decker—the first of her kind—and her measurements, probably
taken on the gun-deck, were: 169 feet 9 inches long, by 48 feet 4
inches beam, the depth of her hold being 19 feet 4 inches. She had
a tonnage of 1683 burthen, and her anchor weighed 60 cwt. Designed
by one member of the Pett family, Phineas, she was built under the
supervision of Peter Pett. In 1684 she was practically rebuilt and
then renamed the _Royal Sovereign_, but twelve years later had the
misfortune to be burnt accidentally at Chatham, yet not before
she had done excellent service under Blake and others during the
seventeenth century wars. Notice in the illustration that instead
of the rare use of the topgallant at the main, she carries them on
all three masts: further still, observe the fact that by now royals
have come into use for the first time. The fore and main have them
stowed with yards lowered.[96] Originally the _Sovereign of the Seas_
had four masts. She carried over 100 guns; had a figurehead; and the
beak-head, though somewhat similar to that of the _Prince Royal_,
is placed lower, while the length of the ship is proportionately
greater, and the original tubby appearance of the _Prince Royal_
is improved upon. There is a medal of the time of Charles I.,
commemorating the Declaration of Parliament of 1642. On one side is
shown a conventionalised design of this or a similar ship, showing
both topgallants and royals, the latter stowed.

Comparing a ship of the seventeenth century with a modern sailing
craft of the same tonnage, the most striking defects that would
appear in the former were the clumsiness in proportions. The
lowness of the bow and the height of the stern seem to us nowadays
ridiculous: so they were. But it was just one of the stages reached
in the transition from those lofty forecastles and stern-castles that
we saw originate in early times. But masts and spars were now no
longer the stumpy items they had been. There was an improvement, too,
in the existing rule of tonnage-measurement. Up to 1628 it had
been far from reliable, being reckoned by the capacity for storing
so many tuns of wine. From the time of Henry V. and long after,
ton as applied to shipping denoted the capacity to hold a barrel
measuring 42 cubic feet in the hold below deck. Therefore a vessel
of 900 tons was capable of holding 900 such barrels. As the barrels
were circular and could not be packed close together, the tonnage was
really greater than what was given.[97] But from 1628 it was to be
estimated from the length of the keel, leaving out the false post (a
piece bolted to the after edge of the main sternpost), the greatest
breadth within the plank, the depth from that breadth to the upper
edge of the keel, and then to multiply these and divide the result by
one hundred.[98]

We have seen how, in the sixteenth century, the greatest rivals of
the English were the Spaniards. Now, in the seventeenth century,
it was the Dutch. Gradually they had been getting stronger and
stronger until about the middle of the seventeenth century they had
reached their zenith in prosperity and power. They had accumulated
considerable wealth, were building fine, capable ships, and about the
time we are speaking of had no equals in either of these possessions.
Before the close of the sixteenth century we have seen them engaging
on the first Arctic Expedition and inventing a new rig for small
vessels. All through the reigns of James and Charles I. they had
gone on developing. It was not until about the close of Elizabeth’s
reign that Holland had commenced to build ships purely for fighting
purposes, but by the year 1624 their men-of-war were the superior of
ours. They kept their ships well, and we find incidentally that it
was the practice of the Dutchmen to tallow the bottom of their ships
while the English had allowed their vessels to become overgrown with
weeds and barnacles below the water-line. The competition between
the two countries set ablaze so much jealousy that an explosion was
bound to come sooner or later. It did come during the Commonwealth,
but though the Civil Wars of Charles I. had the same ill effects on
our Navy as the Wars of the Roses, yet under Blake the Dutch were
beaten, our Navy became again the finest in the world, and settled
for the future the position which English fleets should occupy in
respect of other nations. Highly ruinous as this war was to Dutch
shipping and commerce, it meant the rise of our own Navy and merchant
service. True, our vessels were slower under sail than the Dutchmen,
yet we were more solidly built and armed more heavily. One result
of the war in 1654, not a little gratifying to our pride, remained
in the acceptation by the enemy that henceforth all Dutch ships,
whether men-of-war or of the merchant service, on meeting any English
men-of-war in British seas should strike their flags and lower
topsails. Another and more practical result was that many valuable
Dutch ships passed into our Navy as prizes.

During the Dutch hostilities was employed, for the first time, by
the English, a man-of-war named the _Constant Warwick_, which was
the successor of the galleasse and the immediate precursor of the
frigate of the eighteenth century. Originally the name “frigate”
(French, _frégate_) was only known in the Mediterranean: it was then
used as applied to the galleasse type of craft, having oars plus
sails. But it was the English who were the first to appear on the
ocean, says “Falconer’s Marine Dictionary,” with frigates denoting
“a light, nimble ship, built for the purpose of sailing swiftly.”
The _Constant Warwick_ was of 315 tons. Before the end of the
Commonwealth the frigate was given finer lines to her underwater
body, whilst the height of the hull above water was reduced and the
keel lengthened. The rake fore and aft was lessened, so that the
extreme length over all became diminished in proportion to the length
of the keel. In spite of the obvious improvements which would ensue
from this alteration, there was one vessel, the _Gainsborough_, which
Mr. Oppenheim cites, that was unable to beat to windward. These new
frigates were built at first without forecastles, but afterwards,
except in the case of the fifth and sixth-rates, they were added to
the larger ships. They were somewhat under-canvassed rather than the
reverse. The longboat was still towed astern as we saw in an earlier
century, the pinnace and skiff being stowed on board. Although during
the Commonwealth the ornate decoration of ships was restricted,
gilding being entirely stopped, yet in 1655 Mr. Oppenheim states
that this restriction was relaxed. The figurehead, the arms on the
stern and the two figures on the stern gallery were to be gilt, but
elsewhere the hull was to be black and picked out in gold where there
was carving. In spite of all that we can bring against Cromwell it is
only fair to say that he exercised a considerable amount of good on
behalf of the Navy and English commerce. In addition to settling the
Dutch troubles, there had been another matter affecting our shipping
that needed attention. For some time the piratical people of Algiers
had made the seas to be so dangerous as practically to have throttled
over-ocean trade. Cromwell, however, in his own determined manner
undertook an expedition to the Mediterranean under the command of
Blake, and secured relief for our commerce from the attacks by which
it had been harassed.

From “Two Discourses of the Navy: 1638 and 1659,” by John
Hollond,[99] we are able to gather some further information as
to the material used for ships of the English Navy during the
Commonwealth. Thus, the second of these discourses, written the year
before Cromwell died, mentions that there were three kinds of hemp
in use, viz.: Russian, which was the cause of considerable complaint
because it lasted only a year, while home-made hemp endured for
eighteen months; Rhine band being another variety, and Riga band the
third. But there appears to have been a good deal of trickery and
dishonesty generally going on at this time in connection with hemp
and cordage.

As to the timber, English oak was used for straight, curved (referred
to as “compass”), and knee timbers. Ash was used for blocks and
tholes, &c., while elm and beech were used for the planking below the
waterline and also for the keel. There was in this century a great
dearth of timber, and the royal forests had seriously deteriorated.
As a result, foreign planking was imported in large quantities
from abroad, and especially the Baltic. In this may be found the
explanation for the speed with which our ships decayed. In Charles
II.’s time the planks and timbers were fastened with tree-nails or
hard wooden pins. Those who have not forgotten their undergraduate
days will be interested to hear that the best trees for this purpose
were grown at Shotover and Stow Wood, Oxfordshire.

With regard to the iron used, by 1636 there were as many as three
hundred iron works in the country. Iron nails were stolen in such
large quantities that the systematic marking of Navy stores was begun
about the time of the Restoration. A proclamation of 1661 introduced
the broad arrow, as a Government mark on timber and anchors.

We pass now to the time of Charles II.[100] Following up the
zeal of the ancestors of his house, Charles showed a very real
interest in the Navy. In spite of all his follies, in spite of his
libertinism and effeminacy, Charles had one great outstanding series
of good deeds to his name in having done more for the English Navy
than perhaps any English rulers before him. Navigation and naval
architecture went ahead rapidly: the Greenwich Royal Observatory
and the Nautical Almanac were founded, the science of astronomy
encouraged, and yachting in this country given such an impulse as is
still felt to this day.

[Illustration: FIG. 62. BOMB KETCH.]

The total strength of the Navy at the Restoration was 156, this
number being made up of the following entities: first-rates,
second-rates, third-rates, fourth-rates, fifth-rates, sixth-rates,
hoys (small sloop-rigged merchant vessels adapted for war purposes),
hulks (for transporting horses, &c.), sloops, ketches, pinks and
yachts. Sir Walter Raleigh refers[101] to “hoyes” of Newcastle as
needing a slight spar-deck addition fore and aft. He speaks of
them as being ready in stays and in turning to windward. They drew
but little water, and carried six demi-culverin and four sakers.
Manwayring defines the ketch somewhat vaguely as “a small boate
such as uses to come to Belingsgate with mackrell, oisters &c.” The
ketch was a two-masted ship, not necessarily fore and aft rigged
as we speak of them nowadays, but with the mainmast stepped well
aft.[102] Descended from the Dutch galliot, the ketch was especially
used at the end of the seventeenth century as a “bomb-ketch.” The
illustration in Fig. 62 is from an old French print in the United
Service Museum, Whitehall, where it is called a “Galiote à bombe.”
Bomb ketches were first employed by Louis XIV. in the bombardment
of Algiers with great success. They were about 200 tons burthen,
and built very strongly, so as to bear the downward recoil of the
mortars. The reason for the large triangular space left between the
mainmast and the bowsprit is to give plenty of room for the mortar
to fire. The hold was closely packed with old cables, cut into
lengths, the yielding elastic qualities of the packing assisting in
taking up the force of the recoil.[103] The stamp used by the Hakluyt
Society on their publications is ketch-rigged. About the time of the
beginning of Charles II., the fore and aft ketch would be rapidly
developing. The pink was also of Dutch extraction. She is—for the
Dutch craft have scarcely altered since the seventeenth century—a
cutter or yawl-rigged small open boat, and clinker-built.

About 1660 Chatham was the most important of the royal dockyards,
Pett being in charge there. Sir Anthony Dean made a report on the
state of the Navy in 1674, at the close of the Third Dutch war. As a
result the sum of £300,000 was voted by Parliament to build twenty
ships as suggested by Sir Anthony. As to the comparative strength of
the European nations at this time, the following list is instructive.
On April 24, 1675, England had ninety-two ships carrying twenty
to one hundred guns and upwards: France had ninety-six ships and
Holland one hundred and thirty-six. As we mentioned just now, the
shallowness of the Dutch waters prohibited the building of big ships,
so that they were unable to build three-deckers, and the largest
ships carried no more than eighty or ninety guns. In addition to the
figures quoted above, we must add three fireships to the English,
four to the French, and forty to the Dutch fleets.

The £300,000 voted by Parliament was really with a view of meeting
the increase in the French Navy. It was during the first year of the
reign of our Charles II. that young Louis XIV. took the government
of the French into his own hands. There was then practically no
French Navy in existence, if we except a handful of frigates. But
three years before Sir Anthony Deane’s recommendation was approved
by Parliament, France had increased her fleet to fifty ships of the
line, besides a large number of frigates and small craft. It was
during Louis’ regime, in fact, that England had to look, not to
Spain, nor to the Dutch for signs of possible trouble on the sea, but
to France, which rose rapidly to a position of the first importance
as a naval power. Thus, English first-rates were to be built not with
a view of the shallow-draught Dutchmen but in order to be able to
contend with the fine French fleet whose vessels were the superior
to ours in size, though our first-rates were capable of standing an
enemy’s battery better than most ships.

English second-rates had the advantage financially of needing fewer
men. They drew less water, carried a smaller weight of ordnance, but
by reason of the fire from their three decks were able to render a
good account of themselves in battle. Fourth-rates served only as
convoys, and likewise the fifth-rates. In Pepys’s time England had as
many as thirty-six fourth-rates.

We are able to gather a good deal of information respecting naval
matters of the time from Pepys’s Diary. In the early part of the
reign war with the Dutch had broken out again, and in 1667 the Dutch
had actually sailed up the Thames estuary and burnt our ships in the
Medway. In spite of the ultimate good results to the English Navy
under Charles II., the daring and pluck which had been so conspicuous
in the Elizabethan seamen appear to have been not always alive. But
what worse evidence could be wished of the condition of the English
character of the time when we remember that while a Dutch fleet of
eighty ships burned the forts of Sheerness and ascended the Medway
as far as Chatham, capturing and destroying our men-of-war, Charles
II. “amused himself with a moth-hunt in the supper room, where his
mistresses were feasting in splendour”? Under the date of July 4,
1666, Pepys writes in his diary:

“With the Duke, all of us discoursing about the places where to build
ten great ships: the King and Council have resolved on none to be
under third-rates; but it is impossible to do it, unless we have
more money towards the doing it than yet we have in any view. But,
however, the show must be made to the world. In the evening Sir W.
Pen came to me, and we walked together, and talked of the late fight.
I find him very plain, that the whole conduct of the late fight was
ill; that two-thirds of the commanders of the whole fleet have told
him so: they all saying, that they durst not oppose it at the Council
of War, for fear of being called cowards, though it was wholly
against their judgment to fight that day with the disproportion of
force, and then we not being able to use one gun of our lower tier,
which was a greater disproportion than the other. Besides, we might
very well have staid in the Downs without fighting, or anywhere else,
till the Prince could have come up to them; or at least, till the
weather was fair, that we might have the benefit of our whole force
in the ships that we had. He says three things must be remedied, or
else we shall be undone by this fleet. First, that we must fight in a
line, whereas we fight promiscuously, to our utter and demonstrable
ruine: the Dutch fighting otherwise; and we, whenever we beat them.
Secondly, we must not desert ships of our own in distress, as we
did, for that makes a captain desperate, and he will fling away his
ship, when there are no hopes left him of succour. Thirdly, the ships
when they are a little shattered must not take the liberty to come
in of themselves, but refit themselves the best they can, and stay
out—many of our ships coming in with very small disableness. He told
me that our very commanders, nay, our very flag-officers, do stand
in need of exercising among themselves, and discoursing the business
of commanding a fleet: he telling me that even one of our flagmen in
the fleet did not know which tacke lost the wind, or kept it, in the
last engagement. He says it was pure dismaying and fear that made
them all run upon the Galloper, not having their wits about them: and
that it was a miracle they were not all lost.”

From his entry made on October 20, 1666, we gather that the “fleet
was in such a condition, as to discipline, as if the Devil had
commanded it.... Enquiring how it came to pass that so many ships
had miscarried this year ... the pilots do say that they dare not do
nor go but as the Captains will have them, and if they offer to do
otherwise the Captains swear they will run them through. He [_i.e._
Commissioner Middleton] says that he heard Captain Digby (my Lord of
Bristoll’s son, a young fellow that never was but one year, if that,
in the fleet) say that he did hope he should not see a tarpawlin
[_i.e._ a sailor] have the command of a ship within this twelve
months.”

And again on October 28:

“Captain Guy to dine with me, and he and I much talk together. He
cries out on the discipline of the fleet, and confesses really that
the true English valour we talk of, is almost spent and worn out.”

It was Pepys who urged that ships should be built of greater burden,
stronger and beamier, for at that time the men-of-war needed to be
girdled round the hull. They were crank-sided, could not well carry
their guns on the upper decks, especially in bad weather, and not
enough room was left for the carrying of stores and victuals. He
gives the following comparison between the two principal ships of the
French, Dutch and English:


FRENCH

  _Soll Royall_ (more correctly _Le Soleil Royal_), 1940 tons.

  _Royall Lewis_ (_Le Royal Louis_), 1800 tons.

  Besides these, two others were 140 feet long on the keel with 48
  feet beam.


DUTCH

  _The White Elephant_, 1482 tons.

  _Golden Lion_, 1477 tons.

  The former was 131 feet long on the keel, the latter 130 feet. Both
  had 46·9 feet beam, drew 19 feet 8 inches of water, and carried
  three decks.


ENGLISH

  The _Royal Charles_, “with the girdling of 10 inches measure,” was
  1531 tons.

  The _Prince_ (says Pepys) “is full as big now girdled and as long
  on the gun-deck as the Charles, but having a long rake they measure
  short on the keel or she would be 1520 tons.”

  It must be observed in reference to the above figures that the
  Dutch ships had a greater rake forward and would measure much
  bigger, being very beamy. Pepys mentions that “the excellent French
  and Dutch ships with two decks are more in number and much larger
  than our third-rates.”

The _Soleil Royal_ mentioned above was a fine three-masted ship of
the line, carrying 108 guns. She was a worthy example of the high
state of excellence reached by the French naval architects of this
period. She was lost, however, when the combined English and Dutch
fleets in 1692 defeated the French off Cape La Hogue. This was a
decisive blow to another of those plans for the invasion of England,
and the naval battle in which the French fleet was utterly destroyed
has been regarded by historians as the greatest naval victory won
by the English between the defeat of the Armada and the battle of
Trafalgar.

[Illustration: FIG. 63. THE “ROYAL CHARLES.” BUILT IN 1672.]

We give in Fig. 63 an illustration of the _Royal Charles_ mentioned
above. This delightful picture is from a photograph of a model
in the South Kensington Museum. Built at Portsmouth in 1672 to the
designs of Sir Anthony Deane, she carried 100 guns: her length was
136 feet, beam 46 feet, depth 18 feet 3 inches, draught 20 feet 6
inches. The arms of England and the lantern that ornamented her stern
are still preserved in the Rijks Museum, Amsterdam, for the _Royal
Charles_ was one of those vessels which were either captured or
destroyed when the Dutch came up to Chatham in 1667. In the beautiful
model before us the ports are correctly gilded. The rake and length
of the bowsprit are in accordance with the information that has been
handed down to us. At the extreme end of the latter will be seen the
sprit topmast, up which the sprit topsail was hoisted. A jackstaff
is at the top of the sprit topmast. The present model does not show
topgallant yards, but as we know from Heyward they were found in the
inventory of this ship. Below the sprit topmast and on the bowsprit
will be noticed the spritsail yard now kept fixed to the bowsprit.

As to what vessels of the seventeenth century looked like under
way the delightfully realistic picture which Mr. Charles Dixon has
painted for our frontispiece will materially help our imagination.
And here perhaps we may say a word regarding the subject of the flags
carried at this period. After the union of England and Scotland in
1603 all British vessels flew the Union flag of the crosses of St.
George and St. Andrew in the maintop for a time, English and Scotch
ships also carrying their national colours in the foretop. Ensigns
of red, white or blue with the St. George’s Cross on a white canton
next to the ensign staff were also commonly carried until the time of
the Commonwealth. But on May 5, 1634, it was ordered that men-of-war
alone were to fly the Union flag in future, and that merchantmen
according to their nationality were to fly the St. George’s or the
St. Andrew’s flag merely. This rule ended in February, 1649, when
Parliament directed men-of-war to fly as an ensign the St. George’s
Cross on a white field.[104] The Union flag was carried on the sprit
topmast as shown in the frontispiece, and to-day the Jack is still
seen at the bows of our men-of-war, though they be built of wood no
longer.

Edward Heyward in his book just mentioned gives still further details
of contemporary ships. The rule which he mentions for ascertaining
the length of the mainmast was that it should be half the length of
the keel and once the length of the beam put together. The mainstay
was to be in thickness half of the diameter of the mainmast. The
shrouds were to be one half the thickness of the stay, and the
topmast shrouds to be one half the main shrouds’ thickness. One ton
of hemp required three barrels of tar. As to the ship’s boats of the
_Sovereign_, her longboat measured 50 feet 10 inches long, 12½ feet
broad, and 4¼ feet deep. Her pinnace was 36 feet long, 9½ feet broad,
3¼ feet deep. Her skiff was 27 feet long, 7 feet broad, and 3 feet
deep. Fourth-rates only carried a longboat and a pinnace, fifth-rates
carrying simply a longboat, while sixth-rates had only a 22-feet boat.

The _Prince_ mentioned in the above list was the _Prince Royal_ of
James I.’s reign. Her career had been a distinctly varied one. As
originally launched she was the _Victory_ belonging to Elizabeth’s
reign. She fought against the Armada, having been turned into a
galleon two years before the fight. In 1610 as stated she had been
rebuilt and called the _Prince Royal_, but this “rebuilding” was
during this period something far more than any moderate adaptation.
After the death of Charles I. her name was called during the
Commonwealth the _Resolution_, and at the Restoration this was
changed yet again to the _Royal Prince_. According to Le Sieur
Dassie in his “L’Architecture Navale” printed in Paris in the year
1677, _Le Soleil Royal_ had a tonnage of 2500 as well as 120 guns
and 1200 men. _Le Royal Louis_ had the same tonnage and the same
number of guns, but only a thousand men. He gives also a very full
and interesting inventory of _un vaisseau du premier rang_ of 2000
tons. Every detail is mentioned even to the _ornements de chapelle_.
Very confusing is the naming of the three masts as used by the French
at this time and embodied in Dassie’s work. Thus, as we hinted in
a previous chapter, the foremast is the _misaine_, the main is the
_grand mast_, while the mizzen is the _mast d’artimont_, or exactly
the reverse of what we should have expected them to be named. From
such a work as Dassie’s and, some years later, of Jean Bernoulli in
his “Essay d’Une Nouvelle Théorie de la Manœuvre des Vaisseaux,”
printed at Basle in 1724, we see how at last the scientific study
of naval architecture had begun to make headway. The action of
heavy bodies passing through the liquid sea, the relation of speed
to design, were being slowly understood. Finally in 1794 the same
scientific treatment was applied to sails. In “A Treatise Concerning
the True Method of finding the proper area of the sails for Ships of
the Line and from thence the length of masts and yards,” by F. H. af.
Chapman, printed in London, the area of the sails in regard to the
stability of ships is thoroughly entered into.

[Illustration: FIG. 64. A DUTCH MAN-OF-WAR OF ABOUT THE END OF THE
SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.]

The illustration in Fig. 64 is of a model of a Dutch man-of-war now
in the Royal United Service Museum, Whitehall. It is supposed to be
of contemporary date, belonging roughly to the period of Louis XIV’s.
rule, 1661-1715. The rigging may be relied upon, but the model is
too broad in proportion to her length. The guns are also exaggerated
in size, but for all that it may serve to assist the reader in
visualising the ships of what was so important a maritime Power.
The notable characteristic of the Dutch and French craft of the
seventeenth century as opposed to the English was that the two former
had their sterns terminating squarely, while the English rounded the
lines of the stern above water more. This foreign characteristic
of the square stern is everywhere noticeable in the contemporary
paintings and engravings of Holland. Over and over again we see the
overhanging stern gallery, with the transom stern below, going in (so
to speak), for the gallery above to project out. We find it in the
earliest yachts of Holland, in the Dutch East Indiamen as well as the
ships of the line. The reader will recollect at an earlier period we
referred to the “tumble-home” which had become a new phase in naval
architecture consequent on the introduction of cannon on board ship.
This during the ensuing two centuries had been overdone, so that the
upper deck bore a ridiculously narrow proportion to the width of the
ship at the water-line, but the Dutch in the height of their naval
knowledge were the first of the nations to relinquish it. It is to
the Dutch of the last part of the sixteenth and the first half of the
seventeenth centuries that we owe the beginnings of the fore-and-aft
rig and of yachting as we mentioned earlier. But in order that our
attention may not be distracted from the history of the squaresail,
it will be more convenient to deal with the development of the
smaller craft in Chapter IX.

We have already referred to the great influence for good exercised
on the English Navy by Dutch and French naval architects. Among the
points of superiority which the smaller French craft possessed over
ours was that their lower guns were as much as four feet above the
water, an improvement that made for greater safety. They could also
stow four months’ provisions, whereas our frigates were narrower and
sharper, and carried their guns little more than three feet clear
of the water, having space only for ten weeks’ provisions. It was
as improvements on these defects that the _Resolution_ and _Rupert_
had been built by Sir Anthony Deane. During the reign of Charles
II., also, Sir Philip Howard made an invention for sheathing his
Majesty’s ships with lead in preference to using wooden boards with
a layer of tar and hair between the sheath and the ship, the whole
having been covered outside with a composition of sulphur, oil and
other ingredients. The old method of sheathing with elm boards had
been introduced by Hawkins during Elizabeth’s reign, but it does not
appear to have been successful, for in a report dated October 12,
1587, the chief shipwrights state that the _Bonaventure_, which had
been treated according to Hawkins’ method, had decayed timbers under
her sheathing. But the reader will recollect that as far back as the
reign of Edward VI. the ships that voyaged to the North-East under
Chancellor and Willoughby had part of their underbody covered with
thin sheets of lead, while the ancients of the time of Caligula and
even before, had also adopted this method of preserving the hulls of
ships. So Howard was really a reviver rather than an inventor.

Still, since complaint had been made that Hawkins’ method
necessitated frequent cleaning, and the roughness of the
wood-sheathed bottom interfered with the sailing abilities, Howard’s
plan was adopted. The first experiment of using his milled lead
sheathing was made on the _Phœnix_ at Portsmouth in 1670-71, and
afterwards on the _Dreadnought_, the _Henrietta_, and others in 1672.
The _Phœnix_ was careened at Sheerness in 1673, after two voyages
to the Straits, and inspected by the King himself. In the same year
Howard’s new method was finally adopted for the Navy by the Lords of
the Admiralty. Considerable opposition was made by some critics, who
rightly pointed out that the action of the lead was to corrode very
rapidly the iron nails and rudder-irons of the ship, and eventually
in 1682 the Navy Board reported against a further use of this
sheathing.

An experiment of quite a different nature was made in 1674 in
utilising cypress trees from the new colony of Virginia. They
were said to be large enough for the masts of yachts, and both
lighter and tougher than fir, which was then being used. It is
curious how persistently the galley endeavoured, in spite of every
discouragement, to make its reappearance in England. This, however,
was owing to the success with which it had flourished in the
Mediterranean. In 1666 the Duke of Florence presented Charles II.
with two of the best galleys that could be built, one of which went
from Leghorn to Tangier. Anthony Deane, the younger, subsequently
built a galley called the _James_ at Blackwall; another, called the
_Charles_, was built at Woolwich, by Phineas Pett the younger, the
date of both being 1676. They were classed in Pepys’s “Register of
the Royal Navy” as fourth-rates. From the naval papers of the period
we find that 1000 loads of timber will build a third-rate of 1000
tons. A ship of 1000 tons costs £10 a ton to build, and the life of a
ship was about thirty years. Great merchant ships cost from £6 to £8
2_s._ 6_d._ to build, but merchantmen of 250 tons cost from £5 to £7
a ton.

By the end of the seventeenth century the sailing ship had reached a
stage in development which, till the close of the eighteenth century,
altered but little. Naval architecture, thanks to French influence,
was progressing. Eddystone lighthouse was built, and Dampier had
undertaken his famous voyage to Australia. The naval authorities
had by now become firmly convinced of the folly of the high-charged
decks, with the enormous rake ascending from the low bows to the
lofty stern. But another change was also beginning to take place.
For some time it had been customary when a fleet of ships voyaged
in company to have them rigged as nearly as possible with spars and
sails of the same size, so that in the event of anything carrying
away, each ship would be able to supply the other with a sail,
or spar, or rope of the proper dimensions. Later, as ships became
bigger and carried more sails and spars, this idea had been extended
to the individual ship. Thus, soon after the Revolution, Cloudesley
Shovel advocated the supplying of two spare topmasts to every ship,
and fitting spritsails in such a manner that when necessity arose
they might serve as main topsails. The yards, too, of spritsail,
topsail, mizzen topsail, and main topgallant were to be made so as to
be interchangeable. By about the beginning of the eighteenth century,
the triangular headsails are seen on full-rigged Dutch ships, whilst
the lateen mizzen still continues. The reader will recollect that
this shaped headsail had first been introduced on the Dutch sloops
of the sixteenth century, with their foresail working on a stay as
to-day, having a sprit mainsail, resembling that of the modern Thames
barge, but with no jib for the present. Now, in the century we are
discussing, the Dutchman uses the same shaped headsail for his big
ships, the spritsail underneath the bowsprit still remaining. In
course of the first half of the eighteenth century this innovation
spread to France and to England. At the beginning of the eighteenth
century, also, besides the fore staysails, main and foretopmast
staysails and main topmast studding sails were in use in our ships.
The cables were each 100 fathoms long, made of 21-inch hemp, and
the bower anchors weighed 74 cwts. for a first-rate. The length of
the longboats was 36 feet, the pinnaces 33 feet, and the skiff 27
feet. The heaviest guns were 42-pounders.[105] By the middle of the
eighteenth century the staysails and triangular headsails had become
quite common, and two instead of one spritsail are found under the
bowsprit. The sprit topmast disappears, but the jackstaff is used in
its place to fly the Union Jack when at anchor, being taken in when
under way, otherwise it would hinder the working of the triangular
headsails. An important change now takes place in the mizzen. The
reader will recollect that for several hundred years it had been used
in its Mediterranean triangular shape on European ships. Instead of
the yard coming quite low down, as in Fig. 63 of Charles II.’s ship,
the angle the yard makes with the mizzen mast is nearer to a right
angle. Thus, instead of the sail being triangular it is rectangular,
having four sides instead of three. The next stage is to cut off that
part of this sail which projects forward of the mast, though the yard
itself is still allowed to extend ahead of the mast without having
any canvas on its forward end. The luff of the sail is laced to the
mast, hoops not being used. Finally, by at least 1768, the portion
of the yard still found without any canvas is lopped off, and the
vangs which had been used all the time for the mainsail of the sloops
are seen coming down from the peak to the stern. Also, following the
example of the contemporary Dutch fore-and-afters, there is no boom.
If the reader will now look at the mizzen of the corvette model in
Fig. 69 he will see this penultimate stage clearly shown. The final
stage comes later when a boom is added, and that, too, may be traced
for its origin to the Dutch fore-and-afters, which, discarding the
sprit extending diagonally across the mainsail, added a tiny gaff and
a much longer boom, the sail being loose-footed. Instead of the long
bowsprit of the early Stuarts, the middle of the eighteenth century
saw this mast-like projection cut into two pieces, so as to make
bowsprit and jib-boom. Topgallants now become far more frequently
used.

After the Revolution, at the end of James II.’s reign, the three
ranks of Admiral, Vice-Admiral, and Rear-Admiral, were established,
and the practice of having red, blue, and white ensigns, which had
been introduced during the time of Charles I., continued. These
ensigns were shown on an ensign staff, each having a cross of St.
George on a white field in the upper canton. The Jack flown on
the staff on the bowsprit was blue with a white saltire and a red
cross with white fimbriation over all. Signals were made, not by a
combination of flags, but by changing the position of flags.

[Illustration: FIG. 65. THE “TERRIBLE,” A TWO-DECKER CAPTURED FROM
THE FRENCH IN 1747.]

When Queen Anne died in 1714, there were in our Navy seven
first-rates, thirteen second-rates, forty-two third-rates, sixty-nine
fourth-rates, forty-two fifth-rates, and twenty-four sixth-rates.
As to the meaning signified by these classes, the first-rates were
vessels of one hundred guns, or upwards, carrying them on three
decks. Second-rates carried from ninety to one hundred guns on
three decks: third-rates had from sixty-four to eighty-four guns on
two complete decks: fourth-rates had from fifty to sixty guns on
two decks: fifth-rates had from thirty to forty-four guns, whilst
sixth-rates carried only twenty to thirty guns. There were also in
the service smaller vessels classed as sloops, and others classed
as gun-brigs and bombs. The progress which had been going on in
rigging, during the early years of the eighteenth century, continued
in respect of size of tonnage and also in the weight of armament now
carried. Regard, too, was paid to the proper seasoning of timber. The
action of the Navy Board in 1719 established a scale of dimensions
and tonnage for the construction of ships of the six separate rates,
and this influence was felt for nearly a century after, although the
establishment was not always strictly adhered to. Improvements went
on with regard to internal structure and ventilation, and in order to
counteract the injurious effects of bilge water. The result was that
both the health of the ship herself and of her crew were improved
when once the foul gases accumulating below had been overcome.
Collaterally with the progress of the science of naval architecture
in England was the development in France. Ever since the time of Jean
Baptiste Colbert, during the reign of Louis XIV., France had stood
superior to any European Power in ship-designing. Nor were English
naval architects and shipwrights slow to avail themselves of whatever
opportunity presented itself for studying the lines and structure of
the foreigner. Whenever one of the crack ships of the enemy became an
English prize it followed that within the next few years an improved
English man-of-war, based on the design of the foreigner, would be
launched. As an example of the beautiful vessels which France was
capable of building, about the middle of the eighteenth century,
the illustration in Fig. 65 will at once be evidence. This is the
_Terrible_, captured from the French in 1747, and afterwards passed
into the English Navy. She was a two-decker with three masts, and
carried 74 guns. Her gun-deck was 164 feet 1 inch long, and her beam
was 47 feet 3 inches, while her depth was 20 feet 7½ inches. Her
tonnage worked out at 1590. The illustration has been taken from a
contemporary print in the Royal United Service Museum.

[Illustration: FIG. 66. H.M.S. “ROYAL GEORGE.” 100 GUNS, 2047 TONS.
FOUNDERED IN 1782.]

Fig. 66 represents H.M.S. _Royal George_, of 100 guns, one of the
most famous ships of the eighteenth century. Her size—2047 tons—alone
makes her remarkable, apart altogether from her good looks. Her
length on the keel was 143 feet 5½ inches, beam 51 feet 9½ inches,
depth 21 feet 6 inches. Built at Woolwich she ended her days as
tragically as another vessel we mentioned before, and owing to a
similar cause. While she was being careened as she lay at anchor in
Spithead for some repairs to her hull below the waterline, she sank
on August 29, 1782. To-day she is still famous as the ship in which
Rear-Admiral Kempenfelt, together with nine hundred men, women, and
children, went down to their graves. The illustration is taken from
an engraving, by T. Baston, in “Twenty-two Prints of several of the
Capital ships of his Majesties Royal Navy,” in the Print Room of the
British Museum.

Still another experiment was made in 1761 in order to find some
suitable method for sheathing ships’ bottoms. At last lead had been
finally discarded. But now the sensible plan of using copper was
tried on the _Alarm_, a 32-gun frigate. Finding that not only did
this preserve the ship’s planking, but also increased the speed of
the ship through the water, vessels of all classes were subsequently
covered in the same way. The plates of copper were affixed to the
hull, tough sheets of paper being placed in between the sheathing and
the hull.

[Illustration: FIG. 67. NELSON’S “VICTORY.” 2162 TONS. BUILT IN 1765.

_Photo. S. Cribb._]

Nelson’s historic flagship, the _Victory_, of 100 guns, was built
in 1765. Her immediate predecessor of the same name was launched in
1735, being the finest first-rate of her time, until she was lost in
a terrible storm off the Alderney Race, every one of the 1000 souls
on board perishing with her. The illustration of Nelson’s _Victory_
in Fig. 67 was taken recently in Portsmouth Harbour where this fine
old ship still swings to the tide. Her length is (measured on the
gun-deck) 186 feet, beam 52 feet, depth of hold 21 feet 6 inches,
whilst her tonnage is 2162, or slightly larger than the _Royal
George_ previously mentioned. The reader will notice the Jack flying
in the place previously referred to. Very interesting to us who have
traced its development is the stage at which the bow has arrived.
Gone is the towering forecastle, though the name still survives as
designating the fore-part of even small cabined craft. Even the
diminished rake of the seventeenth century from bow to stern has
disappeared too. In order that the reader may also obtain some idea
of the stern, and the three lanterns which would have been part of
the ship’s inventory when she set out for the Mediterranean on her
last voyage with Nelson, the illustration in Fig. 68 may be worthy
of notice. It is only quite recently that the Admiralty have added
these replicas, which look not a little incongruous as they tower
above submarines and torpedo-boats churning up the water below. The
flags flying in Fig. 67 were intended to represent Nelson’s immortal
signal. It was quite recently discovered, however, that the wrong
signals had been flown on Trafalgar Day each year, for the code of a
far too modern date was relied upon. This mistake has been rectified,
and the correct flags are now flown on October 21.

[Illustration: FIG. 68. THE STERN OF H.M.S. “VICTORY,” SHOWING THE
THREE POOP LANTERNS RECENTLY ADDED BY THE ADMIRALTY.

_Photo. S. Cribb._]

[Illustration: FIG. 69. CORVETTE, 340 TONS, OF ABOUT 1780.]

The illustration in Fig. 69 represents a corvette of about the
year 1780. Corvettes were vessels having far less freeboard and
without the high quarter-deck. They were ship-rigged and carried
less than twenty guns. Those carried on the ship before us would be
six-pounders. Her crew would number 125, her tonnage would be 340,
her length on the gun-deck, 101 feet, length of keel, 85·5 feet,
beam 28 feet, depth of hold 12·5 feet. As to her canvas carried,
the triangular headsails with the two spritsails will be seen. In
addition to her courses, she carries topsails, topgallants, and
royals on the fore and main masts. The converted lateen has already
been referred to, but it should be noticed that while she has on
the mizzen a topsail, topgallant and royal, and also a cross-jack
yard, yet no sail is set on the latter, as it is to-day on a
full-rigged ship. This yard had been in use since the beginning of
the seventeenth century, and it was not until 1840 that a Yankee
skipper took it into his head to introduce the sail which is known
as the cro’jack. The French, since from this spar no sail was set,
called it the “barren yard”—_vergue sec_.[106] It was during this
century that the frigate proper as a fast cruiser was introduced
into the English Navy. Still stirred to energy by the activity
displayed by the French, the dimensions of English ships were
constantly being increased during the last years of the eighteenth
century. The capture, in 1792, of the fine three-master _Commerce
de Marseilles_, with a tonnage of 2747, and a length of over 200
feet, came as a welcome prize to our fleet which had nothing to
equal her in respect either of size or armament. Again the design
embodied in her was carefully studied by our experts, and before
the close of the century two important improvements were made in
English men-of-war. The first was to cease placing the lower battery
so low down to the water. The reader will readily see that if the
enemy were to leeward—as in all probability he should be—our lower
ports must necessarily be kept closed unless there were only such
a faint draught of wind as scarcely caused the ship to heel over.
The French were thus at a great advantage in being able to fire
from every one of their guns down to the lowest tier. The second
improvement consisted in giving our newer ships a length far greater
in proportion to the beam.




CHAPTER VIII.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SAILING SHIP IN THE NINETEENTH AND TWENTIETH
CENTURIES.


I shall endeavour in this chapter to conclude the narrative of the
large sailing ship, all of whose sails, excepting her triangular
headsails and the staysails and the new shape which we have seen the
mizzen take, are square, and carried athwart the mast. Neither the
fore-and-aft rig, nor those hybrid developments of squaresail and
fore-and-aft rig, will be considered until the following chapter, in
order that our attention may not now be distracted from the older
form, and also that we may be able presently to consider, without
break of continuity, the story of that newer rig which had its origin
during the sixteenth century.

In 1801 the Union Jack was modified by the introduction of a saltire
for the Union of Ireland with Great Britain. The white, red and blue
admirals, with their corresponding ensigns, continued. Thus the Red
Ensign had not become yet the exclusive use of the Merchant Service
nor the White Ensign of the Navy, but all three colours were in
use to indicate the rank and place of flag-officers. At Trafalgar
we fought under the White Ensign solely. After the practice had
grown up of the whole fleet, for the sake of convenience, flying one
colour, the three were in 1850 abolished, and the White Ensign became
the colour of the Royal Navy.

One of the first war vessels to be laid down in the new century was
the _Caledonia_, 205 feet long and of 2616 tons. This was in the
year 1802, but she was not launched until six years later. Carrying
120 guns she was a first-rate, and was based on the design of the
_Commerce de Marseilles_, which we mentioned in the last chapter.
There is a model both of the _Commerce de Marseilles_ and of the
_Caledonia_ in the Royal Naval College Museum, Greenwich. The latter
was broken up only as recently as 1907. Up to the beginning of the
nineteenth century ships of the Royal Navy were painted with blue
upperworks, bright yellow sides, and broad black strakes at the
waterline. The interior was generally painted red.[107] But Nelson
had the hulls of his ships painted black with a yellow strake along
each tier of ports, but with black port-lids, and this chequer
painting distinguished all men-of-war, both at Trafalgar and after.
White was soon introduced as a substitute for the yellow. This white
band has survived to this day on many of our biggest sailing ships,
and is well seen in Mr. Charles Dixon’s sketch of the four-masted
barque reproduced in Fig. 78.

Among the innovations which came into use during the early years of
the nineteenth century were the lifeboat and the prototype of the
modern rocket life-saving apparatus. In 1774 Captain (afterwards
Admiral) Schank, while stationed at Boston, built the first craft
that ever possessed a sliding keel. This invention was put into
actual use by the English fleet during the wars in which our country
was engaged at the beginning of the century. By its means those ships
thus fitted were able to sail closer to the wind without making so
much lee-way. They were made better on the helm, and they could take
the ground with less possibility of damage. There is in the Greenwich
Museum an excellent model of the 50-gun frigate _Cynthia_, fitted
with these sliding keels in 1795.

The strenuous years that formed the beginning of the new century in
which England was constantly at war, gradually increased the size
of her Navy to the enormous total of 644 ships which was reached in
1813. When we mention that at the beginning of the present year,
1909, the British Navy, including certain ships not yet completed,
did not exceed 517 warships of all kinds, one can readily realise how
great had been the extension of the fleet, and, in consequence, how
great an incentive to shipbuilding and the seafaring life had been
given. But this number had as quickly diminished to 114 four years
later, when the outlook of peace seemed bright and hopeful. In 1812
the unfortunate war broke out between the United States and Great
Britain, and for another two years naval activity was renewed. What
the immediate result of the American war had on the development of
the sailing ship is not difficult to estimate. As regards English
shipbuilding, owing to the great success of the American frigates and
their superiority to our own vessels, a sudden wave of enthusiasm
swept over the British naval authorities for frigates. In the panic,
this was pushed to foolish extremes, and bigger ships were cut
down and converted into frigate-shape. In America, the building of
frigates of such unusual size first called the attention of naval
architects to the advantages and possibilities of large vessels. It
was thus that the way was paved for the coming of the early clippers
in 1851.[108]

It is time now to refer to the powerful influence exercised over our
naval architecture by Sir Robert Seppings. It was he who in 1804
introduced the round bow in place of the straight wall-like structure
which had been inherited from the previous centuries. Similarly,
instead of the square stern, he gave his ships a circular one. But
more important still was the diagonal method of placing the timbers
of a ship which he introduced in 1800. The advantage of this was
increased strength and ability to resist the hogging strains, which
the Egyptians also had to overcome.[109] A large model showing
Seppings’ method of construction will be found in the Greenwich
Museum. The system, while no doubt being efficacious in preventing
the “working” of a ship’s component parts, must necessarily have
added very considerably to her weight. It was about this time, too,
that teak was used occasionally for the construction of ships. During
the first quarter of the century whatever improvements were made in
British naval architecture owed their origin almost entirely to the
knowledge gained from the numerous prizes captured from the French.
One of the finest ships ever built in France was the _Sans Pareil_,
which we had taken from the enemy in 1794. She was of 2242 tons and
carried 80 guns. (The reader will find a block-model of this ship in
the Greenwich Museum). The influence which this vessel exercised over
our naval architecture was not inconsiderable. So much admiration did
she receive that as late as 1845 there was designed on similar lines
and laid down at Devonport a British ship. She was never launched,
however, as another _Sans Pareil_, but while on the stocks was
altered, her length was increased, and she was eventually given the
addition of a screw propeller, and thus launched in 1851.

[Illustration: FIG. 70. THE “NEWCASTLE,” AN EAST INDIAMAN.

_Photo. Hughes & Son, Ltd._]

The progress which had been made in the ships of the Royal Navy
had its counterpart in the mercantile marine. Gradually through
the centuries since the Crusades had opened up the Mediterranean
to English trade our ancestors had acquired bigger and bigger
ships for the purpose of carrying merchandise. The discovery of
the West Indies, of North America, the Newfoundland Fisheries, and
subsequently the founding of the East India Company, had step by
step developed the ships which were used for purposes of commerce.
Especially favourable for merchant shipping had been the East and
West Indian trade. The voyages and discoveries made by Dampier,
Anson and Cook increased still further the scope of English trade,
and, consequently, the need for both ships and seafaring men became
greater. Wars obviously arrested the progress already made, but by
1821 the tonnage of the shipping of the British Empire amounted to
the significant sum of 2,560,203, in spite of the keen competition
now made by the United States. The East India Company at the
beginning of the nineteenth century occupied the position now held in
the twentieth century by the principal companies owning the biggest
liners to-day; that is to say, the largest and finest merchant ships
belonged to them. And profiting by the monopoly which they owned,
paying very handsome profits, they could afford to build their ships
well and strong. Consequently it is not to be wondered that the East
Indiamen from the commencement of the century down to the last of
their race became historical for their building and capabilities.
Fig. 70 shows the _Newcastle_, a well-known East Indiaman of the
early part of the nineteenth century.

[Illustration: FIG. 71. SPITHEAD: BOAT’S CREW RECOVERING AN ANCHOR.

_From the painting by J. M. W. Turner, R.A._

_Photo. by Hanfstaengl._]

During the eighteenth century brigs of about a couple of hundred tons
had been used for coasting trade, and especially for carrying coals
from Shields and Newcastle: but with the advent of the steam collier
the days of these ships were numbered. The illustration in Fig. 71
is from the painting by Turner in the National Gallery entitled
_Spithead: Boat’s Crew recovering an Anchor_. It was exhibited in
the Royal Academy in 1809, and is here included in order to provide a
contemporary picture of the full-rigged ships of the beginning of the
nineteenth century.

Not till about 1810 was iron introduced for knees, breast-hooks
and pillars, although the use of iron had been tried for the whole
structure in a small boat as far back as 1787. The real introduction
of building ships of iron occurred in 1829, yet it was not till the
’forties that opposition was entirely swept aside and iron came to be
recognised as a suitable material for ships.

[Illustration: FIG. 72. A WEST INDIAMAN OF 1820.]

But we have digressed from the period before us. If the East India
trade was a monopoly, commerce with the West Indies was unfettered
by any such condition. Not unnaturally, therefore, competition
was keen on this route, and as a result a number of excellent
cargo-carrying ships were built, able to endure the trying conditions
of the Atlantic without being deficient in the virtue of speed.
The illustration in Fig. 72, taken from a print dated 1820, in
the British Museum, will give some idea of the appearance of a
contemporary West Indiaman. Gradually the similarity between purely
mercantile and exclusively naval ships was disappearing, and we shall
see presently how this gulf was widened still further.

Sir Robert Seppings was succeeded by Captain Sir William Symonds,
R.N., who was Surveyor to the Royal Navy from 1832 to 1847, years
full of importance in the history of the sailing ship. We have
referred more than once to the slavish copying of French models which
had been a feature of our naval architecture. This was now to end.
Just as before, and many times after, England had shown herself to
possess a genius not so much for inventiveness as for improving on
the ideas of others, so now she began to design and build vessels
that could not be surpassed even by the French themselves. During
Symonds’ _régime_ the golden age of the wooden walls of England
was reached. It was he who was responsible for the design of such
ships as the _Vernon_ (fifty guns), the _Queen_, and about one
hundred and eighty others. Seaworthiness combined with speed were
their outstanding virtues, and these he obtained by improving
their underwater lines and making them less heavy and clumsy.[110]
Internally the ships were constructed so as to provide more room
and air. Symonds completed the work of Seppings in getting rid of
the mediæval stern which had lingered with certain modifications
for so long a period. Instead of the circular, he gave his ships
an elliptical stern, and devised a system whereby not only were
the different spars of one ship interchangeable, but the spars of
different ships and different classes of ships. There is a very
fine large model of his _Queen_ in the Greenwich Museum which has
been rigged with the greatest regard to accuracy in every possible
detail, so perhaps in studying her we shall get as good an example
of Symonds’ ships as we can desire. Built in 1839, this 110-gun
ship had a tonnage of 3104. Her length was 204 feet 2½ inches, her
breadth 60 feet 0½ inch, her depth 23 feet 9 inches, and she carried
a crew of 900. She had been laid down as early as 1833, and her name
had originally been the _Royal Frederick_, but after the accession
of Queen Victoria she was named _Queen_ at her launching. Later, in
1859, she was given the addition of a screw propeller.

In the Greenwich model she is seen as a sailing ship pure and
simple, with three decks. As to her rigging I have had the pleasure
of talking with more than one of those who served in this, the
first three-decker that was launched during the reign of Victoria.
One of the first points that strikes one is that the _Queen_ is
seen to have relinquished the historic hempen cable for the chain.
The rounded bow instead of the square shape already alluded to is
immediately obvious. The yard of the spritsail athwart the bowsprit
still remains, although this sail remained longer in the merchant
service than in the Navy, being used but rarely in the latter at
this late period. She possesses a bowsprit in three parts, _i.e._,
bowsprit proper, jib-boom and flying-boom. To encounter the downward
strain the ship by now has also a dolphin-striker. The _Queen_
carried stun’sails (studding-sails) of course, square in shape,
which were often weighted down by shot at the outboard end. Many
merchant ships of that time, however, had them cut not square but
triangular, and these were then set, not as the modern yacht sets
her spinnaker with the apex of the triangle at the top, but at the
bottom. In the edition of “Falconer’s Marine Dictionary” revised
by Burney, and published three years before the _Queen_ was laid
down, he speaks of and illustrates stun’sails only for the courses,
topsails, and t’gallant sails. Royal studding sails most probably
never were seen, although I notice that E. W. Cooke, R.A., whose
life was covered by the period between 1811 and 1880, who was one of
the most faithful marine artists of the time, whose father was well
known as an engraver of Turner’s pictures, who himself was also at
one time largely engaged on similar work, has an illustration showing
a British frigate with both t’gallant and royal stuns’ls. It seems
unlikely that so accurate an artist as Cooke should make such a
mistake, although the weight of evidence is decidedly against him.

Falconer says that lower studding sails were used on the main
and fore. The booms were generally hooked on to the chains by a
gooseneck, and kept steady by a guy. Topmast and t’gallant studding
sails were spread along the foot by booms which slid out from the
yards. This is well seen in the _Queen_ and many another model which
the reader will no doubt have examined. In a similar manner the
head of the sail had small sliding yards for the same purpose. The
sail on the mizzen mast now called a driver or spanker was chiefly
used when on a wind, being usually stowed when running. The boom
will be found to project very far over the stern, even to an almost
incredible extent, yet this is quite accurate for the period. As is
still the custom, the gaff was kept up when the sail was not in use,
contrary to the practice on a modern cutter-rigged vessel. The origin
of this sail we have seen develop from the old lateen, and modified
in its transition by Dutch influence. Now, one characteristic of
the Dutchman was his love of brails, and even when the boom was
added and the diagonal sprit taken away from this sail on the little
fore-and-afters the brailing system clung tenaciously to the sail. We
have a very good instance of this in the mainsail of the bawley (see
Fig. 86), which has neither boom nor sprit, but which can be brailed
up all the same. The barge has a sprit but no boom, and stows her
sail by brailing. When this sail came to be used as the driver on
square-rigged ships and the boom was also added, using a loose-footed
sail, the brails still survived as we see them on the _Queen_. In
furling the driver, therefore, the brail hauled the sail to the mast:
then in order to make a neat job of it a kind of clew-garnet drew the
leach end of the foot diagonally across the sail to the mast also.
This will be noticed in many contemporary prints of this period and
earlier. I have talked with one old sailor who remembers, when the
ship had got into the favourable trade-wind, not merely setting every
stitch of canvas the vessel had to put up, but even stepping the
masts of the ship’s boats lying on deck and hoisting the sails of
these boats to drive the ship along yet faster still. The reader may
remember that Nelson’s _Victory_, one of the fastest line-of-battle
ships of her day, went into action at Trafalgar with studding sails
set.

We have already shown that it was not long in the new century
before iron was introduced in connection with shipbuilding, though
it was some time before it was able to take the place of wood for
the hulls of ships. By the ’thirties steam was becoming gradually
to be reckoned with as a serious menace to sail, and in the Navy
the _Tartarus_, of four guns and a tonnage of 523, was classed as
a paddle sloop. Nevertheless, paddle-wheel steamers attached to
the fleet were regarded with scorn and spoken of as “dirty old
smoke-jacks.” As a distinguished naval officer and explorer, happily
still with us, Admiral Moresby, says: “There was obviously no future
for this type in the service, and sails would continue to waft us
as they had done from the beginning. So we thought; but one day a
long, low craft, barque-rigged, and possessing no outward sign of
a steamer but the funnel, joined the fleet. She was the _Rattler_,
the first man-of-war screw-ship. We viewed her with interest but did
not realise her significance. Pitted against her in every trial was
the _Alecto_—a paddle-sloop of equal tonnage and horse-power—the
_Rattler_ an easy first in all circumstances. Finally they were
lashed stern to stern in a ‘pull devil, pull baker’ grip, and
ordered to put forth all their strength to see which could tow the
other—a strange scene which I well remember. It was a calm day,
with a long, heaving swell. _Alecto’s_ paddles were revolving and
churning the foam like a whale in a flurry, while a slight ripple
under the _Rattler’s_ stern alone showed that there was power at
work.... _Alecto_, in spite of frantic struggles, was dragged slowly
astern, and the era of the screw had begun.”[111] The same author
relates an amusing instance as showing the manner in which steam was
contemplated by the old school. A certain captain was bringing his
ship into harbour under steam and sail. As he ran up he shortened
sail and came to anchor in handsome style, but unfortunately forgot
that his engines were still going, with a result that could only
spell disaster!

There was between the naval ships of the ’forties and those of the
time of Charles II. a similarity a hundredfold closer than that which
can be found to exist between the former and those of King Edward’s
ships to-day. With a change in ships came a change in personnel.
“The officers of the early ’forties,” writes Admiral Moresby, “with
few exceptions, were content to be practical sailors only. They had
nothing to do with the navigation of the ship or the rating of the
chronometers. That was entirely in the hands of the master, and
no other had any real experience or responsibility in the matter.
For example—I recall a captain, whose ship was at Spithead. He was
ordered by signal to go to the assistance of a ship on shore at
the back of the Isle of Wight. In reply he hoisted ‘Inability. The
master is ashore.’ He was asked, ‘Are the other officers aboard?’ and
signalled ‘Yes.’ But to the repeated order, ‘Proceed immediately,’
he again hoisted ‘Inability,’ and remained entrenched in this
determination until a pilot was sent to assist him.”

But to come back to the merchant service, to the old East Indiamen
“with their stately tiers of sails and splendid crews of trained
seamen,” although they were much finer in their lines and less
unhandy than the vessels in the Royal Navy of this period, their rig
was in most respects akin to the latter.[112] They carried three
courses—foresail, mainsail and cro’jack, three topsails (in each of
which there were three or four reefs), and three t’gallant sails
and royals, or twelve sails on the three masts. The fore-and-aft
sails were: on the bowsprit and jib-boom, a fore topmast staysail,
an inner jib and outer jib and flying jib. Below the bowsprit was
set on the spritsail yard, what the reader has been accustomed
through these chapters to know as the “spritsail,” but which in
the nineteenth century, even though triangular headsails were more
in evidence than before, still continued, though known as a “water
sail,” or “bull-driver.” Leslie, in his “Old Sea Wings, Ways and
Words in the Days of Oak and Hemp,” says that spritsails were not
only used when going free but when on a wind. The reef-points were
placed diagonally so that when reefed that part of the sail nearest
to the sea was narrower than the upper part. Two circular holes were
cut, one in each corner, so that when the ship plunged her bows into
a sea the water could run out and not split the canvas. Mr. Bullen
says that this sail was not of much use, nor could he understand why
it was carried at all, as it always had to be furled as soon as the
ship began to pitch a little. However, this last and final relic of
mediævalism has at last departed for good, although it dated back for
its origin to the artemon of classical times. Even when the sprit
topmast had disappeared, the sprit topsail was retained for some
time by placing it below the bowsprit instead of above, but further
forward of the spritsail proper.

Between the fore and main masts of the East Indiamen were the main
topmast staysail, main topgallant staysail and main royal staysail.
Between the main and mizzen were the mizzen topmast staysail, and
mizzen t’gallant staysail, but a royal was seldom set on this mast.
Abaft came the spanker or driver, often with the addition on the
after-leach of a ring-tail. Stun’sles, too, were used. But in those
days although these East Indiamen carried more hands than a sailing
ship of like size does to-day, yet every night at sunset all light
sails were taken off her and the ship was snugged down for the night.
Still the old bluff-bowed East Indiaman had had its day when the
young Republic of the United States, encouraged by the opportunity
which freedom from war now afforded, introduced on the sea ships
with clipper-bow that literally cleft the waves instead of hitting
them and retarding the passage of the hull through the water. With a
freedom of mind which has ever characterised the American, both as a
nation and an individual, the marine architects on the other side of
the Atlantic threw convention still further to the winds by modifying
the design of the stern in such a way that instead of squatting
and holding the dead water the ship slid through it cleanly with
a minimum of resistance. Possessing unlimited supplies of timber,
they were in a position to build ships at a far lower rate than we
in this country. In fact, so much was this the case that in England
between the years 1841 and 1847 no fewer than forty shipbuilders
went bankrupt in Sunderland alone. The one object of the American
designer was to build a ship that should sail every other craft off
the seas and so obtain the maximum of trade-carrying. Besides the
improvement in bow and stern they lengthened the ship till she became
five and six times longer than in breadth. This gave an opportunity
of adding a fourth mast to the ship and to carry more sails. The
sails themselves were improved in cut, being no longer mere bags to
hold the wind, but of a “close-textured, dazzlingly-white canvas.” In
exact contradistinction to the East Indiamen, these Yankee ships did
not reef down in anticipation of the gale that was to follow hours
after, but took in sail reluctantly. The part played by the American
clippers during the period that saw the close of the great wars and
the beginning of the American Civil War is one of vast importance to
the development of the sailing ship of any size. Even when steamers
began to cross the Atlantic in 1840, these wonderful clippers were
able to cross in about a fortnight. In every way superior to the
old cotton-ships running between New York and Havre in the early
’thirties, the clippers of the ’forties and ’fifties were seaworthy
as well as fast. One of the most famous was the _Flying Cloud_
built in 1851, which performed the sensational run of 427 knots in
twenty-four hours when on a passage from New York to San Francisco.
The _Sovereign of the Seas_ did even better still.

But yet again the English genius for improving on other peoples’
ideas showed itself at a critical point in the history of
shipbuilding. Shipbuilders and architects put their heads together
and decided to meet the American on his own terms. If he had
built clippers that had flown across the sea, it was their duty
to build something that would fly faster still; so a new chapter
in British shipping begins, and headed by Mr. Richard Green, the
famous Blackwall shipbuilder and shipowner, England built for
herself the real thing in clippers, quite early in the ’sixties.
The _Challenger_ was in 1850 laid down in Messrs. Green’s yard to
sail against the American _Challenge_, in an ocean race from China,
and won. Besides Messrs. Green, other British firms entered the
contest and built splendid clippers, amongst whom may be mentioned
Messrs. J. Thompson & Co., of Aberdeen, who founded the well-known
line of Aberdeen clippers; Messrs. Steele, of Greenock, and Messrs.
Scott, of Greenock. Built of teak planking with iron frames, these
new vessels were made to last, unlike the American ships, whose
life was quite short, built as they were merely out of soft stuff.
The enormous spars which the new British ships were given caused no
little surprise at that time, but they managed to carry them none
the less. The _Great Republic_, launched in the early ’fifties,
was the first vessel to carry double topsails. Owned and built in
America, she was 305 feet long, 53 feet broad, 30 feet deep, and had
a tonnage of 3400. She carried also double t’gallant sails as well
as staysails, and was barque rigged, having 4500 square yards of
canvas. So perfectly was she rigged that she was handled by a crew
of 100. She was chartered by the French Government to carry troops
to the Crimea,[113] had four decks and was strengthened with iron
lattice-work.

But about the year 1853, we enter upon the final and most perfect
stage of the sailing ship. Spurred on by competition and necessity,
builders and architects had been compelled to put forth their best
and to get right away from the old-fashioned ruts. So now wood at
last was to give place to iron as the material for constructing
sailing ships as well as steamers. In this year Messrs. Scott of
Greenock built the iron sailing ship _Lord of the Isles_ which, three
years later, beat two of the American crack clippers, though nearly
double her size, in the race from Foo Choo to London. The adoption
of iron meant a saving of about a third of the weight of the hull;
moreover, as ships became longer, increased structural strength was
found to be lacking in wood.[114] As we saw in the time of Charles
II., English oak had been getting gradually so scarce as to put us
at a serious disadvantage in competition with such a well-wooded
region as North America. The gold rush to California in the ’fifties,
and to Australia, gave a tremendous impetus to shipping. The reader
must recollect that by this time there were no railways across the
American continent, and so when the inhabitants of the Eastern States
of America decided to go west, they could only go _viâ_ Cape Horn.
This was the chance for the clipper ship to show her superiority to
her predecessors, and in these voyages she soon showed that speed
meant money.

But we must come now to the influence which the China tea trade had
on the sailing ship. I understand that tea is a commodity which, as
long as it is kept in a ship’s hold, quickly loses its delicate
flavour and quality. Consequent on this, and the desire on the part
of London merchants to obtain each year the first portion of the new
tea crop at the earliest possible moment, it was to their interest to
encourage a quick passage. Therefore enormous prizes were held out
as an inducement, and the keenest rivalry existed between different
ships in the race home. Solent regattas, the international race from
Dover to Heligoland, even the famous race a few years ago across the
North Atlantic look ridiculous when one thinks of the excitement
that reigned on board during a race all the way from China to the
River Thames. For a long time the American ships had been successful.
Before the introduction of iron such craft as the _Sea Witch_, a
clipper built in 1842, of 907 tons register, and carrying 1100 tons
of China tea,[115] caused tremendous jealousy among the British
skippers. In 1853 the _Challenge_ had sailed from Canton to Deal in
105 days, though in the same year the English _Chrysolite_ clipper
sailed from Canton to Liverpool in 106 days. For a few years the
Americans had the best of the competition; but before the ’fifties
had ended the China trade had been won by British clippers, and the
American Civil War of 1861-1865 dealt a fatal blow to their clippers
as rivals to ours. But none the less those keen races to England
did not diminish. The rivalry which had existed between nation and
nation now continued between ship and ship, between skipper and
skipper, shipowner and shipowner. This led to the finest development
of sailing ships, and as long as the word remains in the English
language, so long will these clipper races remain famous alike for
the skill as for the sporting instinct in the crews that got them
home in record time.

[Illustration: FIG. 73. THE “ARIEL” AND “TAEPING,” TWO OF THE FINEST
TEA-CLIPPERS, RACING HOME, OFF THE LIZARD, ON SEPTEMBER 6, 1866.]

Among the most celebrated ships of the ’sixties were the Black Ball
liners _Flying Cloud_ and _Scomberg_; the Aberdeen clipper liners
_Thermopylæ_, _Thyatera_; whilst among the China clippers were the
_Sir Lancelot_, which was lost in the Bay of Bengal in a cyclone
in 1896, the _Black Adder_ and the _Cutty Sark_. Other famous tea
clippers were the _Ariel_, _Taeping_, _Serica_, _Fiery Cross_ and
_Taitsing_. The first two of these will be found in Fig. 73, in which
they are seen off the Lizard on September 6, 1866. They started
together with _Serica_ from Foo-choo on May 30, and lost sight of
each other till they reached the English Channel. _Taeping_ arrived
in the London Dock (the same day she had passed the Lizard) at 9·45
P.M., while _Ariel_ arrived at the East India Dock at 10·15 P.M., or
with half an hour’s difference after racing for over three months
on end. _Serica_ arrived only a few hours later. In the thrilling
picture before us, these two ships are seen with stun’s’ls and
staysails set. The foretopmast staysail in both ships is stowed
since the foresail with its projecting stun’s’l would otherwise
blanket and render it useless. The improved lines at bow and stern
to which we referred just now are here seen at their best. Two of
the fastest sailing vessels ever built were the _Thermopylæ_ and the
_Sir Lancelot_. The former especially, had a marvellous capacity for
speed. In one day, in the year 1870, she made a run of 330 knots, or
380 statute miles, being an average of 16 miles an hour. The _Sir
Lancelot_, for seven consecutive days, kept up an average of over 300
miles a day. It was the _Thermopylæ_, which in 1869 was the first tea
ship home, having made the passage in 91 days, but the _Sir Lancelot_
presently eclipsed even this wonderful passage in 89 days, being the
fastest clipper ever built.

The _Cutty Sark_ was not as fast as the _Thermopylæ_ and _Sir
Lancelot_, but in 1872, although she had her rudder carried away on
the voyage, she ran home from Shanghai in 122 days. The _Thermopylæ_
was a composite clipper of 947 tons register. She was 210 feet
long by 36 feet beam and 21 feet deep. She was designed by Mr.
Waymouth for Messrs. Thompson & Co. The _Sir Lancelot_ was, like the
_Thermopylæ_, a composite ship, and was built by Messrs. Steel, of
Greenock, for Mr. James McCunn. She was 886 tons register, 197 feet
long, 33 feet 7 inches broad and 21 feet deep. When fully laden with
300 tons of ballast and 1430 tons of tea, she drew 18 feet 7 inches
of water forward and 2 inches more aft. Her complement was 30, and
when in racing trim she spread more than an acre of canvas. Her best
run in twenty-four hours was of 354 miles. The article contributed
recently by Mr. Bullen to the periodical already mentioned set on
foot an interesting correspondence, in which some valuable facts were
brought out by those who had actually served on these clipper-ships.
And since the days of man are but three score years and ten, and
before many more decades have run all those who went to sea in these
magnificent ships will have passed away, I have thought it worth
while to preserve here some of their recollections. The authors
having adopted pseudonyms, I am unable to give their names.

One correspondent states that he remembers to have sailed 368 miles
in one day, and 1000 miles in three days. One ship made a passage
from the Start to the Ridge Lightship (30 miles from the mouth of the
Hooghly) in 86 days. This was the _Northampton_, owned by Messrs.
Soames and Co., of London. But other ships, including Messrs. Green’s
_Alnwick Castle_, did it in 69 days. On September 23, 1863, the
_Hotspur_ arrived at Madras in 79 days.

[Illustration: FIG. 74 THE IRON CLIPPER “STONEHOUSE.” BUILT IN 1866.

_From the model in the South Kensington Museum._]

The illustration in Fig. 74 is taken from a model in the South
Kensington Museum, and represents the iron clipper _Stonehouse_.
It will be noticed she is ship-rigged; she was launched at Pallion
in 1866. She has a full poop and topgallant forecastle, with
considerable accommodation for carrying first-class passengers and
cargo. Her displacement at load line is 2600 tons; her actual tonnage
worked out at 1298; her length 220·5 feet, breadth 37 feet, depth
22·66 feet, and her load draught 19·25 feet. It will be noticed that
she has double topsails, and her lines will give one an adequate idea
of the famous clippers of the ’sixties.

The effect of the opening of the Suez Canal in the year 1870 was
to place most of the trade to the East into steamers, which by now
had become the deadliest enemy of the sailing ship. It would have
been impossible to have carried on the trade in frozen food to-day
in these fine old ships, and sentiment had necessarily to give way
to the exacting dictates of commerce; but for a long time before
1870, and for some time after opening the canal, the traffic to
India, Australia, and New Zealand was carried on in sailing ships,
and the same keen rivalry to make the best passage continued. The
Atlantic emigrant traffic also continued to be carried in sailing
ships; but the ceaseless progress of the big steamship lines, and the
competition which lowered the fares for steerage passengers, drove
still another nail in the sailing ship’s coffin. And yet, in regard
to speed, these ships would sail to the east or the west with a
regularity equal to most modern tramp steamers.

[Illustration: FIG. 75. THE IRON BARQUE “MACQUARIE.” BUILT IN 1875.

_Photo. Hughes & Son, Ltd._]

The beautiful illustration in Fig. 75 is from a photograph of the
celebrated _Macquarie_. She is an iron barque, and was built in
1875 by Messrs. R. & H. Green of London. Her registered tonnage
is 1977, her length 269·8 feet, her beam 40·1 feet, and her depth
23·7. In her day she was a famous beauty, but now she has changed
her name and nationality. Known as the _Fortuna_ she is registered
at Sandefjord and flies the Norwegian flag. The reader will remark
the old-fashioned white band introduced soon after the Battle of
Trafalgar, and mentioned early in the present chapter.

[Illustration: FIG. 76. THE “DESDEMONA.”

REGISTERED TONNAGE, 1564. BUILT 1875.]

The _Desdemona_, seen in Fig. 76, was built in 1875 by Messrs. W.
H. Potter & Co. of Liverpool. Constructed of iron, she is ship-rigged
and has a registered tonnage of 1564, and is British owned. Her
length is 242 feet, beam 37·7 feet, and depth 22·9 feet. As she is
running before the wind, her headsails have been stowed. As the
reader is probably aware, ships usually when “running their easting
down” haul up a point or two, so as to bring the wind on the quarter,
in order that all sails may be allowed to draw and none allowed
to blanket the other. Thus after running a certain distance with
the wind on one side they gybe her and bring the wind on the other
quarter. The photograph was taken recently off Cape Horn.

[Illustration: FIG. 77. THE “OLIVE BANK.”

STEEL FOUR-MASTED BARQUE. REGISTERED TONNAGE, 2824. BUILT IN 1892.

_Photo. J. Adamson & Son, Rothesay._]

[Illustration: FIG. 78. A MODERN FOUR-MASTED BARQUE, WITH THE R.M.S.
“MAURETANIA” COMING UP ASTERN.

_From a painting by Charles Dixon._]

As the largest British sailing ship of the year 1890 we may mention
the _Liverpool_, of 3330 tons register. Ship-rigged and built of iron
with steel beams she was given two decks, whilst her length came to
333·2 feet, breadth 47·9 feet, and depth 26·5 feet. The five-master
_France_, built on the Clyde for a Bordeaux firm in 1890, with the
large tonnage of 3784, must also be mentioned as a famous barque
of the ’nineties. Her length is 344 feet, beam 49 feet, and she
was built of steel throughout, masts and yards as well. So great
a capacity do her holds possess that she is capable of carrying
6100 tons of cargo. Another large French sailing vessel is the
_Dunkerque_, measuring 105 metres long and 13·9 metres wide. Her sail
area is no less than 4550 square metres. The illustration in Fig.
77 is from a photograph of the _Olive Bank_. Here she is seen with
the following sails reading from forward to aft: On the bowsprit she
carries flying jib, outer jib, inner jib, and fore topmast staysail.
On her foremast she has foresail, lower and upper fore-topsails,
lower and upper fore t’gallant sails, and fore royal. On her main
she has mainsail, lower and upper main topsails, lower and upper
main t’gallants and main royal. On her mizzen she has besides her
course, double topsails and double t’gallants, the royal being seen
half furled. On the jigger she carries a driver (or spanker) with
topsail. She is a four-masted barque, and her registered tonnage is
2824. Built in 1892 of steel by Messrs. Mackie & Thomson at Glasgow,
she is 326 feet long, 43 feet broad, 24½ feet deep, and is British
owned. The illustration in Fig. 78 and in colour on the cover is at
once realistic and symbolical, with the four-funnelled _Mauretania_
four miles astern chasing the poor sailing ship from the seas which
for so long a time she has adorned as a creature of infinite beauty
and an eternal joy to those who have eyes to see and emotions to be
thrilled.

[Illustration: FIG. 79. THE “QUEEN MARGARET.”

STEEL FOUR-MASTED BARQUE. REGISTERED TONNAGE, 2144.

BUILT IN 1893.

_Photos. Hughes & Son, Ltd._]

Our last illustration before we say good-bye to the large sailing
ship is the _Queen Margaret_ in Fig. 79. This is a steel, four-masted
barque. She was built in 1893 by Messrs. A. McMillan & Son, Ltd.,
at Dumbarton. Her registered tonnage is 2144, her length 275 feet,
her beam 42·2 feet, and her depth 24 feet. The photograph was taken
only the other day from a passing vessel off Cape Horn. Most modern
sailing ships of any size are now four masters; but, omitting
entirely the large seven-masted schooners of America, there are a
few square-rigged ships with five masts. When that is so they are
named thus, reading from forward to aft: foremast, mainmast, middle,
mizzen, and jigger. It is a circumstance all too true that, owing
to the enormous advance of steam, both seamen and seamanship are
nowadays hard to find in our country. The best deep-sea sailing-men
are the Germans, who own the biggest five-masted sailing ships
afloat. The _Potosi_, for instance, with five masts and belonging
to Hamburg, is one of the very largest sailing ships ever launched.
It is an undeniable fact that this ship has made eleven consecutive
voyages between Hamburg and Peru in the average time of five months
and twenty days, including stay in harbour, making an average rate
of travel while at sea of eleven knots per hour, and it is not
surprising to hear that this now stands as the world’s record
for the deep-sea sailing ship. The largest sailing ship afloat is
also a German five-master, the _Preussen_. Built of steel in 1902 by
Messrs. J. C. Tecklenborg at Geestemünde, she is 407·8 feet long,
53·6 feet broad, and 27·1 feet deep, and is ship-rigged. Between this
ultra-modern craft and that quaint prehistoric specimen we saw from
the Egyptian jar in Fig. 3 what little connection is there, save for
the one solitary fact that both depend on water for their buoyancy
and on wind for their propulsion! For not only has wood disappeared
as the material for ribs and skin, but chain is now used for topsail
sheets and slings. (Slings are used to suspend the lower yards, the
upper yards being sent down when necessary). Spars and masts are made
of steel, wire has taken the place of much of the rope that was used.
Shrouds and stays are of wire, rigging screws are used instead of
lanyards and of dead-eyes. All the brace-pendants except the lower
ones are of wire, even to the royal and skysail braces, so that the
greater part of the rigging of a ship is now done in harbour ashore
by skilled mechanics. The result is that “marlin-spike seamanship”
is fast disappearing and getting under way to join the spritsail,
oak and hemp of other days. Only among the somewhat diverse class of
fishermen, yachtsmen, and the seafaring men from Scandinavia and up
the Baltic, does it survive with any outward signs of life at all.

We have seen the beginning of the bowsprit with its enormous rake to
carry the artemon; we have watched it continue through the Tudors and
Stuarts as practically an additional mast steeved at a considerable
angle. Gradually the angle has got smaller and smaller until now in
the twentieth century in the latest ships, it is much more nearly
horizontal. We saw this spar become divided into two, and later
into three parts—flying jib-boom, jib-boom, and bowsprit. To-day,
though it is made of iron or steel, it has gone back to be of one
piece. We witnessed the introduction of bonnets; they also have
gone except in Norway, Norfolk, and the Thames barge. The studding
sails which Raleigh spoke of are scarcely ever seen, although in the
’sixties they were prominent features of the clippers when getting
every ounce of power out of the ship. No doubt their awkwardness,
and the necessity of having a first-class helmsman to prevent the
ship swerving suddenly off her course, had most to do with their
departure. Convenience, too, in handling so much canvas up the mast
led to the introduction of the topsails and topgallants, being cut
in half and used double, though on the mizzen a single topsail is
frequent. The gradual introduction of skysails during the last
hundred years has continued till they are found often on fore, main,
and mizzen, while the staysails, which were such characteristic
features of the eighteenth century Dutchmen, are now used freely on
most of the stays. Nor has the change been confined to the spars,
sails, and rigging. Some of the Gallic vessels of Cæsar’s time—so
he records—were fitted with iron cables. Then, as the reader knows,
rope came in, and hemp remained for centuries until, roughly, 1800.
The introduction of the chain, then, has been merely a revival. Lead
sheathing was used by the ancients, forgotten for many centuries
until the Spanish restored its use in the fifteenth century, and
the English in the sixteenth. It was forgotten again until the
seventeenth century, when it was introduced afresh. That was another
revival. The Romans used bronze nails, and we have revived those
again. The Greeks invented the schooner bow, as we saw in Fig. 13. It
was forgotten for centuries again and re-introduced, as we saw in the
seal of Dam in Fig. 40. Still another revival. In yachts, the last
few years have seen the introduction of a reefing gear for furling
both mainsail and headsails. The Chinese have had the former for
centuries. Quite lately the fashion has come in to build yachts with
double-ended “canoe” sterns. That, too, is but a revival of the old
Viking shape—roughly. The reader will remember that in the years
following the coming of William the Conqueror the tendency was for
the ship to have terrific sheer, so that instead of being long and
straight she was almost semi-circular. Gradually, century by century,
this absurd sheer has disappeared, though reluctantly, until to-day
the most modern deep-sea sailing ships have practically no sheer
considering their length, as the reader will see from the photographs
of the modern ships in this chapter.

What and where the next revival will be—who knows? Perhaps some day,
when all the coal has been burnt and all the oil extracted from the
ground, both engines and motors will be banished, and a revival of
sailing power will be made. One cannot tell. But as to the immediate
future of the big sailing ship two considerations arise on two widely
different points, each of which demands attention. The first is the
Panama Canal, to be opened in 1915, though this actual date may be
delayed. Will it deal the last and most cruel blow of all by driving
away those fine white-hulled sailing ships one sees sometimes bound
from South America? Like the opening of the Suez Canal, will the
piercing of the Panama Isthmus mean that, by enabling steamships
to shorten their voyage and its cost to South America, Cape Horn
will no longer be rounded by the sailing ship? That is one subject
for consideration. The other is the effect that the installation of
the motor will have. Coasters with auxiliary power are now becoming
common. In the opinion of experts, ocean-going vessels of 700 tons
can be fitted with motors of sufficient power. A three-masted
fore-and-aft schooner was recently built in North Wales for the
coasting trade fitted with an auxiliary motor. The vessel has a
dead-weight carrying capacity of 200 tons, and the experiment has
been found eminently successful. In towing charges and independence
of weather she will be found to be cheaper even than a small steamer.
A company was formed last autumn in London for the purpose of
building barges propelled by paraffin oil motors with auxiliary
sails, and such barges having a capacity of carrying 300 tons of
cargo have been used on the Continent for some years. Time alone,
therefore, can tell whether we have seen the last and final stage of
the sailing ship, or whether we are about to see the dawn of a new
development of her usefulness.

DETAILS OF SPARS AND RIGGING AS SHOWN IN FIG. 80.

    1. Bowsprit.
    2. Gammoning.
    3. Bumkin.
    4. Horse.
    5. Bob-stay.
    6. Martingal.
    7. Martingal-stays.
    8. Bowsprit-shrouds.
    9. Jib-boom.
   10. Jib stay, and sail.
   11. Jib-halyards.
   12. Horses.
   13. Spritsail-yard and course.
   14. Bowsprit-cap.
   15. Jackstaff and flag.
   16. Braces.
   17. Foremast.
   18. Shrouds.
   19. Stay and lanyard.
   20. Preventer-stay and lanyard.
   21. Yard and course with studding-sail booms.
   22. Horse.
   23. Top.
   24. Yard tackles.
   25. Lifts.
   26. Braces.
   27. Sheets.
   28. Tack.
   29. Bowlines and bridles.
   30. Futtock-shrouds.
   31. Cap.
   32. Fore topmast.
   33. Shrouds and lanyards.
   34. Yard and sail with studding-sail booms.
   35. Stay and sail.
   36. Preventer stay.
   37. Backstays.
   38. Halyards.
   39. Lifts.
   40. Braces.
   41. Horses.
   42. Staysail halyards.
   43. Bowlines and bridles.
   44. Sheets.
   45. Crosstrees.
   46. Cap.
   47. Fore topgallant mast.
   48. Shrouds.
   49. Yard and Sail.
   50. Back stays.
   51. Stay.
   52. Lifts.
   53. Braces.
   54. Bowlines and bridles.
   55. Royal stay.
   56. Back stay.
   57. Royal yard and sail.
   58. Royal braces.
   59. Royal lifts.
   60. Flag of the Lord High Admiral.
   61. Mainmast.
   62. Shrouds and ratlines.
   63. Stay.
   64. Preventer-stay.
   65. Stay-tackles.
   66. Yard-tackles.
   67. Lifts.
   68. Braces.
   69. Horse.
   70. Sheets.
   71. Tack.
   72. Bowlines and bridles.
   73. Top.
   74. Cap.
   75. Yard and course with studding-sail booms.
   76. Futtock-shrouds.
   77. Maintop mast.
   78. Shrouds and lanyards.
   79. Yard and sail with studding-sail booms.
   80. Back stay.
   81. Preventer stay.
   82. Stay and sail.
   83. Halyards.
   84. Lifts.
   85. Braces.
   86. Horse.
   87. Sheets.
   88. Bowlines and bridles.
   89. Crosstrees.
   90. Cap.
   91. Main topgallant mast.
   92. Shrouds.
   93. Yard and sail.
   94. Backstay.
   95. Stay, halyard, and sail.
   96. Lifts.
   97. Braces.
   98. Bowline and bridle.
   99. Royal stay.
  100. Back stay.
  101. Royal yard and sail.
  102. Royal braces.
  103. Royal lifts.
  104. Royal standard.
  105. Mizzen mast.
  106. Shrouds and ratlines.
  107. Cross-jack yard.
  108. Stay.
  109. Preventer-stay.
  110. Cross-jack lifts.
  111.   ”     ”  braces.
  112. Horse.
  113. Top.
  114. Cap.
  115. Mizzen topmast.
  116. Shrouds.
  117. Stay.
  118. Backstay.
  119. Yard and sail.
  120. Lifts.
  121. Braces.
  122. Bowlines and bridles.
  123. Crosstrees.
  124. Cap.
  125. Mizzen topgallant mast.
  126. Shrouds.
  127. Stay.
  128. Backstay.
  129. Yard and sail.
  130. Bowlines and bridles.
  131. Lifts.
  132. Braces.
  133. Royal yard and sail.
  134. Royal lifts.
  135. Royal braces.
  136. Royal stay.
  137. Royal backstays.
  138. Union Jack.
  139. Driver boom.
  140. Boom topping-lift.
  141. Boom guy-falls.
  142. Gaff and driver.
  143. Derrick-fall.
  144. Peak-brails.
  145. Peak-halyards.
  146. Ensign staff.
  147. Ensign.
  148. Bower cable.

[Illustration: FIG. 80. A FIRST-RATER OF 1815, SHOWING DETAILS OF
SPARS AND RIGGING.]


[Illustration: FIG. 81. FULL-RIGGED SHIP.

   1. Flying jib.
   2. Outer jib.
   3. Inner jib.
   4. Fore topmast staysail.
   5. Fore-course _or_ foresail.
   6. Lower fore topsail.
   7. Upper fore topsail.
   8. Lower fore topgallant sail.
   9. Upper fore topgallant sail.
  10. Fore royal.
  11. Main course _or_ mainsail.
  12. Lower main topsail.
  13. Upper main topsail.
  14. Lower main topgallant sail.
  15. Upper main topgallant sail.
  16. Main royal.
  17. Cross-jack (_pr._ cro’jack).
  18. Lower mizzen topsail.
  19. Upper mizzen topsail.
  20. Lower mizzen topgallant sail.
  21. Upper mizzen topgallant sail.
  22. Mizzen royal.
  23. Driver _or_ spanker.]




CHAPTER IX.

THE FORE-AND-AFT RIG AND ITS DEVELOPMENTS; COASTERS, FISHING BOATS,
YACHTS, ETC.[116]


So far we have, with the exception of the primitive lateen, dealt
exclusively with the square-rigged sailing ship. We have seen that
this was the earliest and has continued to be the most universal
sail of the ship. The Egyptian and other early races possessed it,
and likewise the Greeks, Romans and Vikings. In the most modern
full-rigged ship it is to-day seen as conspicuous as ever. For
ocean, deep-sea sailing it has no peer, but in course of time with
the growth of the coasting and fishing shipping, of pilotage and
yachting, a rig that was suitable for deep-sea sailing was found
to be not altogether ideal for the new demands. And so, gradually,
side by side with the squaresail, has grown up another development
which we may divide into two sections: first, the fore-and-aft
rig, and secondly, the compromises that have been made between the
fore-and-aft and the squaresail.

It would be quite impossible here to trace in such complete detail
the history and development of the fore-and-afters as we have done
of the larger sailing ships; that, indeed, demands a separate
volume to itself. But we can show here, what, as far as I am able
to ascertain, has never been attempted by any previous writer, in
outline, at least, the story of the rise of the fore-and-after,
and link it up to that larger ship that sets her sails at an angle
athwart the keel instead of parallel with it. We shall thus complete
our study in connecting the present with the past, and in showing
how the latest _Shamrock_ is related to the early Egyptian ship, and
how on the one hand she has inherited certain family characteristics
of her fore-parent, yet on the other hand, through coming under new
influences and acquiring new habits, she has altered some of the
features by which her ancestors were especially distinguished.

In an earlier chapter we mentioned that it was in Holland during the
sixteenth century that the fore-and-aft rig originated. At first it
was only used for quite small sailing boats, but it was not long
before craft of fifty tons and more adopted it. We must remember that
about this time the Dutch were more advanced in maritime matters
than any other nation. With them shipbuilding and naval architecture
were much nearer to being an art and a science than elsewhere. The
vast number of miles open to inland navigation, the shallowness of
their channels and coasts naturally encouraged and stimulated them
to study the problem of smaller ships. What the Tigris and Euphrates
and Nile had been to the ancients the inland waterways were to the
Dutch. The squaresail rig was out of the question. It was far too
clumsy for tacking in and out of the small harbours of the Zuyder
Zee and German Ocean. It would not sail close enough to the wind to
allow the little craft just to lay her course in a straight narrow
channel, while at the same time the Mediterranean lateen rig with its
enormous yard was not suitable for the boisterous, squally North
Sea. So the Dutchman, appreciating the virtues which the lateen shape
possessed, just preserved this same triangular form, but cut it in
two for convenience and handiness, though at the sacrifice of speed.
Let the reader take his pencil and draw a vertical line to represent
a mast. Across this let him draw a triangle with the apex well over
to one side of the mast and the rest of the triangle and base to the
other. This is roughly the shape of the Mediterranean and Eastern
lateen as one can see by comparing Figs. 102 and 103. Now rub out
from the drawing that part which is forward of the mast, and there
remains a rectangular figure which is the germ of the first mainsail
the cutter, or, more properly, the sloop-rigged boat had. In actual
practice the sail was made much squarer at the top. A sprit was then
stretched diagonally across the sail, with the peak on nearly the
same level as where the throat now is. This sprit was supported just
as in the Thames barge to-day, by a yard-tackle coming down from the
throat to the sprit. It was thus, as we see from the engravings of
the contemporary record of the first Dutch voyage to the North Pole
in 1599, that the little craft that brought the ill-fated members
home was rigged. Similarly the staysail, working on the forestay,
as to-day, was in shape and size roughly equivalent to that part
which in the triangular sketch just now would project forward of the
mast. Vangs came down from the peak, and a bonnet being in use on
the contemporary full-rigged ships, was naturally enough used for
the smaller ships, too. Thus the sprit is really the old lateen yard
modified, and the fore-and-aft rig is in its earliest days but the
dhow rig cut in two. I have made a close study of the earliest Dutch
engravings and paintings, and have little doubt in my mind as to the
stages of development here indicated.

[Illustration: FIG. 82. FROM “RIVER SCENE WITH SAILING BOATS,” BY JAN
VAN DER CAPPELLE.]

The next change came when the last relic of the lateen yard
disappeared, for in place of the sprit a tiny gaff was added at the
top and a boom at the bottom of the sail. The sail was, of course,
loose-footed and very baggy, and was kept to the mast by lacing,
wooden hoops being still unknown. Then a long clumsy bowsprit was
given, so that forward of the staysail a jib might be introduced.
Thus it is not the foresail that was added to the jib, but _vice
versâ_. Originally the foresail was the _fore_ sail in fact as well
as in name, until the jib was introduced. Then topsails were added.
These were copied from those on the contemporary full-rigged ships,
were square in shape, were set athwart the ship and not parallel
like the modern topsails. Before long, we find that not content with
one square topsail, some of the bigger craft set a square topgallant
sail also. The topsail was goared out considerably and the foot was
cut in a deep curve upwards, but a “barren” yard like that of the
old cro’jack was retained. In light winds, the triangular spinnaker
not being yet invented, the Dutchman set a large squaresail for
running. This was similar to the lower course of the full-rigged
ship and was set below the topsail when the ship was large enough to
carry the former. This lower course extended from the hounds, was
hoisted _outside_ the forestay and, if she was a large sized ship and
possessed a bowsprit, the sail extended right down to the furthest
end of the latter. If she had no bowsprit then it came down to the
stem. This latter instance will be seen in Fig. 82, which has been
sketched from the picture by Van der Cappelle in the National Gallery
(No. 964; Van der Cappelle painted from 1650 to 1680). We find in the
paintings and engravings of this time that the Dutch were immensely
fond of booming out these sails with a light spar. One is seen in
this illustration, but sometimes, besides such a one as this, they
would set another boom one-third of the way up the sail, so that it
might catch every breath of wind. In the present illustration the
staysail is seen set, but one often finds it rolled round and round
the forestay. So, too, with the mainsail, if it should happen to
be a spritsail, then the foot was boomed out, in running, with a
light spar also. It was thus, I believe, that the introduction of a
boom and gaff mainsail came—the boom first and the necessary spar
at the top to correspond thereto. Then, not infrequently, one finds
in the Dutchmen of about 1700 that they dispense with the boom but
retain the gaff. The brails, in the case of the spritsails, were
plentifully used, sometimes with the addition also of reef-points.
As to the hulls, they were tubby, bluff-bowed, but excellent
sea-boats, if slow. Being of light draught, they had leeboards.
Until about 1840-1850, we in this country continued to model our
fishing and small sailing craft generally upon the lines of these
Dutchmen (notice the cutter shown in Turner’s painting reproduced
in Fig. 71). But whilst we have gone ahead from improvement to
approximate perfection, from ignorance to knowledge, the ships of
the Low Countries remain but little altered since the days of Tromp,
when the Dutch were at the height of their maritime progress. The
Dutch schuyt, such as may be seen any day lying at her buoy off
Billingsgate, is shown in Fig. 83. The Viking influence is written
largely over the ships of Holland, but breadth has taken the place of
the length beloved of the Northerner.

[Illustration: FIG. 83. A MODERN DUTCH SCHUYT.]

[Illustration: FIG. 84. “A FRESH GALE AT SEA.”

_After the painting by W. Van der Velde, No. 150 in the National
Gallery._]

If we compare the last-mentioned sketch of a modern Dutchman with
that in Fig. 84, which has been copied from the exquisite little
Van der Velde in the National Gallery, we shall see how little
the hulls of their ships have altered. Van der Velde (the younger)
lived from 1633 to 1707, so that he saw the Dutch ships at their very
best. As Macaulay says, the Van der Veldes, father and son, produced,
when they came over to Greenwich as painters to Charles II., some
of the finest sea-pieces in the world. The title given to the
present picture is _A Fresh Gale at Sea_ (No. 150). It is extremely
interesting to us for its indication of the rig. The ship in the
foreground on the port tack will collide with the other if both stand
on. But to avoid this she has resolved to bear up. The reader will
notice the helm has been put hard over as the other ship is seen
staggering out of the squall and mist. Easing off her sheet she has
also lowered her peak by slacking off the tackle at the foot of the
sprit. In another of Van der Velde’s paintings in the same gallery
(No. 149, _A Calm at Sea_) the same peculiar method of lowering sail
is seen. We see a ship at anchor in a calm. She has slacked off the
tack in the same way, so that the spar comes right across the mast.
English ships of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries possessing
this characteristic will be found in the paintings of Turner and
other contemporary artists.

[Illustration: FIG. 85. “RIVER SCENE.”

_After the painting by W. Van der Velde. No. 978 in the National
Gallery._]

For many years, though the Dutch had changed their rig for small
craft, yet they still felt the influence of the bigger squaresail
ships, notably in the design of the sterns. Thus the familiar
decoration and the sheer to a high poop will be noticed in the
vessel that occupies the centre of Fig. 85, which is rigged with a
spritsail. This has been copied from another Van der Velde in the
same gallery (No. 978). I have selected this picture expressly for
the purpose of indicating, as Van der Velde has done, as many of the
prevailing types of Dutch seventeenth-century craft as possible in
a small space. The short gaff, the spritsail furled by means of its
brails, the large squaresail for spinnaker work seen on the ship to
the left of the picture, the high stempost (relic of the Vikings) on
the ship to the right—these will all be found deserving of notice.
It was no doubt a ship very similar to the high-pooped yacht in the
centre of this picture that was sent to Charles II. in 1660 by the
Dutch. The vessel was called the _Mary_, and was the first yacht ever
owned in this country.

In England the revenue and other sailing cutters of the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries were rigged with the square topgallant
sail and “goared” topsail below, with a hollow foot. Old prints
of the beginning of the eighteenth century (1717) show British
cutters sailing with the jack flying from the staff at the end
of the bowsprit just clear of the jib. The bowsprit is steeved
remarkably high and is very long. In a like manner were rigged
also the yachts of this period. So the cutters continued until the
’forties and ’fifties, when the bluff bows and rough rig gave way
to a larger, cleaner lined, and more scientific production than the
slavish copying of a seventeenth century Dutch type could produce.
Now the old-fashioned square topsail has utterly disappeared in
fore-and-afters, and one of more or less triangular shape has taken
its place. But since it is in the building and rigging of yachts that
the most complete changes have occurred during the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries we shall postpone the further progress of the
cutter until later in the chapter.

[Illustration: FIG. 86. THE BAWLEY.]

No modification of the cutter rig in England is so thoroughly Dutch
as the bawley (Fig. 86). Not even the least observant of passengers
on the Margate steamer can have failed to notice these little ships
off the Nore or cruising somewhere up and down the Thames estuary.
Off Southend and Whitstable they are as common as flies in summer,
and bigger children of the same family are to be seen brought up in
the Stour abreast of Harwich. The bawley inherits the Dutch ancient
mainsail, with brails that can speedily shorten canvas, and without
a boom to be kicking about from side to side as the ship rolls in
the trough of the nasty seas that can get up off the entrance to
our great waterway. With their transom stern and easily brailed and
triced mainsail these bawleys are excellent bad-weather boats.

Some of the finest cutters in the country are the Brixham Mumble
Bees, trawlers of about 27 tons. They have their mast stepped
well aft, so that they are able to set an enormous foresail. Here
especially the long bowsprit has survived, and without a bobstay
to support it. The Plymouth hooker, with her mast stepped well
amidships, with her square stern, no boom to her mainsail, and
pole-mast, cannot be said altogether to have escaped Dutch influence,
although it is said that the Devonshire men in Elizabeth’s time
possessed cutters of their own.

The illustration in Plan 1 shows the sail and rigging plan of the
_Gjöa_. The vessel is shown here because in combining much that is
old and new she is one of the most interesting cutters afloat. Her
tonnage is 70, length over all 69 feet, beam 20·66 feet, depth 8·75
feet, draught 7·5 feet. In June 1903 she set out from Christiania,
and three and a half years later she had navigated the North-West
Passage and reached San Francisco. Obviously built for the hard
service of the Arctic regions, her hull is bluff and strong. The
bowsprit is more that of an old-fashioned full-rigged ship than of
a modern cutter, and the squaresail, whose yard and braces will be
noticed, has come back from the times of the old Dutchmen, being,
as already mentioned, of inestimable value for running across vast
expanses of ocean. But in spite of her old-fashioned bow and stern
and rigging she is fitted with a heavy-oil motor, as will be seen
from Plan 2. This was found very useful, giving the ship a speed of 4
knots per hour; and it was the first time a motor-propelled ship had
been so far north. Plan 3 gives an adequate idea of _Gjöa’s_ deck
arrangement.

Pass we now to trace the progress of the schooner. It is a common
error to suppose that this rig was derived direct from the cutter
by merely adding another mast and sail of the same shape as the
mainsail. Such a statement is pure guess-work, and entirely contrary
to fact. The schooner originated quite independently of the cutter
and much later, though the shape of her mainsail and foresail was
obtained from the former. About the beginning of the seventeenth
century a craft far from uncommon among the Dutch was the sloop. Now
in order to clear the ground, let us carefully separate the three
distinct kinds of craft to which this name belonged at that time. The
word sloop, or more properly _sloepe_, was applied less to the rig
than to the size of the craft, denoting a somewhat small tonnage.
Thus it was primarily applied to a ship’s big boat, such as was used
to run out the kedge anchor and for fetching provisions and water
from the shore. The same name was also given to the Dutch vessels
of about 55 feet long and 12½ feet beam which sailed to the Cape
Verde Islands. More familiar to us was the custom of applying it
to the early cutter-like craft which carried a triangular foresail
yet no jib. But not one of these is the sloop we are looking for.
This is found in that kind of sailing craft which was about 42 feet
overall and with 9 feet beam. She was rigged with two pole masts,
the mainmast being 24 feet long. On each she had just such a sail
as we see in Fig. 83 of a modern schuyt, with loose foot and with
both gaff and boom, but the most important fact is that she had
neither bowsprit nor headsails of any kind, while her foremast was
stepped right as far forward as it could get. There are plenty of
contemporary prints and paintings in existence to show such a vessel,
which usually had an enormous sheer coming up from bow to stern.
This, then, was not a schooner but a sloop, and you may search
high and low in all the seventeenth century dictionaries, marine
and otherwise, but you will not find such a word as “schooner”
in existence. We come, then, to the early part of the eighteenth
century, and we cross to North America. When in 1664 the British,
during the war with Holland, seized the Dutch colony of the New
Netherlands and changed the name of New Amsterdam to New York in
honour of Charles II.’s brother, most of the Dutch settlers who
had come out from Europe remained. So, like those early people who
trekked westwards across the Syrian desert to Egypt, the Dutch
had also brought with them their ideas and practical knowledge of
shipbuilding, included in which was that of making sloops. It was
at Gloucester, Massachusetts, still to-day famous for the finest
schooners and the very finest schooner-sailors that ever tasted
brine on their lips, that in 1713 the first genuine schooner with a
triangular headsail was built. To add the latter to the two-masted
sloop was but the easiest transition. Not till the first vessel of
this now enormous class was actually making its first contact with
water was the name schooner bestowed on it. As she was leaving the
stocks some one remarked “Oh, how she scoons.” “Very well, then,”
answered her proud builder, “a scooner let her be.” And so she has
remained ever since.

For the next century and a half Gloucester went ahead building these
beautiful creatures, more stately than a cutter, less ponderous than
a full-rigged ship, until 1852, when the famous _America_ still
perpetuated in the America Cup came across to the English waters and
so wiped the slate that every rich owner of yachts desired to turn
them into the same rig as this Yankee. We will say no more about her
at present as we shall presently make her acquaintance anew when we
come to deal entirely with yachts.

[Illustration: FIG. 87. THE SCHOONER “PINKIE” (1800-50).]

[Illustration: FIG. 88. THE “FREDONIA.” BUILT IN 1891.]

But to return to the more commercial schooner; for whatever else
Gloucester, Massachusetts, may yet become famous, it will always
be associated with that wonderful fleet of fishing schooners which
those who have read Kipling’s “Captains Courageous,” and Mr. J. B.
Connolly’s “The Seiners,” already know. The origin of this wonderful
Gloucester breed may be traced to the Dutch fly-boat, or _flibot_,
of the eighteenth century. The next step in the evolution of the
Gloucester schooner is seen in Fig. 87, the _Pinkie_, engaged in
the fishery industry between 1800 and 1850. Although the sail plan
belongs to a smaller boat than the one just indicated, yet we see
the first step in the introduction of the single headsail to the old
two-masted “sloepe,” with the foremast even now stepped very far
forward. Impelled by the demands for a ship that would be able to
carry its fish to market with the utmost despatch, but which would be
able to endure being caught in the terrible seas off the Newfoundland
Banks; and subsequently encouraged to progress through the popularity
which such craft were obtaining among the American pilots who used to
come out enormous distances into the Atlantic in those days to meet
the incoming liners, the builders and designers went on improving
the design and rig, giving them fine hollow lines, adding jibs and
standing bowsprits, greater draught and speed, larger spars with a
vast square measurement of canvas. The _Fredonia_, seen in Fig. 88,
was one of the famous schooners of the ’nineties and is so still. She
was designed by W. Burgess in 1891, and with her cut-away fore-foot
and finer lines is a great improvement on the old Dutch models. This
vessel measures 114 feet 2 inches long, with 25 feet beam, drawing
12 feet 8 inches. Her displacement is 188 tons, and her sail area is
the enormous extent of 7542 square feet. Fig. 89 represents one of
the earliest of the twentieth-century productions, and is designed
by the famous Crowinshield. Her fore-foot is cut away more like that
of a Solent racing schooner-yacht. Indeed, many of these Gloucester
schooners are far more entitled to be called yachts than any other
name. I have watched them turning up the Hudson in the winter,
threading their way through the ice-blocks and the crowd of fussy
tugs and mammoth liners in New York harbour with the handiness of
a small rater. The most modern example of this ideal ship is that
seen in Fig. 90. She is only a 53-tonner with an overall length of
under 70 feet, and is fitted with a 25-horse-power motor. But in many
cases the internal combustion engine has been adopted by the American
sailing ships only to be rejected as not worth while.

[Illustration: FIG. 89. GLOUCESTER SCHOONER, A.D. 1901.]

[Illustration: FIG. 90. GLOUCESTER SCHOONER, A.D. 1906.]

The coasting trade of the United States of America is not done in
the ketches and topsail schooners and barquentines that we use. It
is done exclusively, where sailing ships are used, in fore-and-aft
schooners which have arisen directly or indirectly from Gloucester.
Two masts have become three, three have become five, and even as
many as seven have been used. Perhaps the most notable of these
was the seven-masted _Thomas W. Lawson_, which foundered off the
Scillies on December 14, 1907. Remarkable for the ease with which it
can be handled, a three-masted schooner of about 400 tons requires
only a dozen hands aboard. In tacking, a couple of hands work the
head-sheets, and these with a man at the wheel can work her in and
out of narrow channels, for which the rig is more suited than any
modification of the squaresail. For labour-saving “gadgets” the
American schooner has reached the furthest limit. Thus the anchor and
sails are raised by steam force; there is steam steering gear as well
as steam capstan, and the biggest ships of all have been fitted even
with electric light. The illustration in Fig. 91 of a four-master
will give one some idea of the extent to which the American schooner
has developed.

[Illustration: FIG. 91. AN AMERICAN FOUR-MASTED SCHOONER.]

Coming back to European waters, besides the pure fore-and-aft
schooner we have also the topsail schooner and the two-topsail
schooner. No better instance of the former could be found than in the
illustration in Fig. 116 of Lord Brassey’s famous auxiliary yacht
the _Sunbeam_, of which we shall give further details on a later
page, among the yachts. But we may now call attention to the square
fore-topsail and smaller t’gallant sail on this ship. Sometimes,
too, one finds a royal added also to the foremast. The braces,
clew-garnet, lifts, and other rigging are so well shown in this
photograph as to require no further comment. A two-topsail schooner
carries a square topsail and t’gallant sail at the main _as well
as_ the fore. The topsail schooner is perhaps the best known of our
coasting types. Most of our trading schooners are “butter-rigged,”
that is to say, that whereas the topsail schooner has a standing
t’gallant yard set up with lifts, the butter-rigged sets her
t’gallants’l flying by hoisting the yard every time.

[Illustration: FIG. 92. A BARQUENTINE OFF THE SOUTH FORELAND.]

[Illustration: FIG. 93. BARQUENTINE WITH STUNS’LS.]

The illustrations in Figs. 92 and 93 represent barquentines, although
one of them is seen with the now obsolete stun’s’ls. A barquentine
is square-rigged on the foremasts, but fore-and-aft rigged on the
main and mizzen. The difference between the barquentine and the
three-masted schooner is that the former has a regular brigantine’s
foremast. The three-masted schooner does not carry a fore-course, but
in place of it a large squaresail, only used when running free in
moderate weather, only differing from the fore-course in that it is
not bent to the yard.

[Illustration: FIG. 94. THE “FANTÔME,” 18-TON BRIG. LAUNCHED 1838.]

The illustration shown in Fig. 94 represents the 18-ton brig
_Fantôme_. She was designed by Sir W. Symonds and launched about
1838. Her armament consisted of eighteen 32-pounders, and her
complement was 148 officers and men. Her tonnage was 726, her breadth
37·7 feet, length 120 feet, and depth of hold 18 feet. This is from a
photograph of the model in the South Kensington Museum. Fig. 95 is a
photograph of the training brig _Martin_, actually afloat. The brig
was the last sailing ship to disappear from the British Navy, and her
final abolition is so recent that her picturesqueness still lingers
in the imagination of Solent yachtsmen and others. The _Martin_ was
launched in 1836. As will be seen from the photograph, which obtains
even greater interest when compared with the model just mentioned,
she carried single topsails, t’gallants and royals. Stun’sails
will be noticed on the foresail, fore-topsail, fore-topgallant
sail as well as on her main topgallant sail. As we shall never see
these sailing brigs again, the photograph is of more than ordinary
interest.

[Illustration: FIG. 95. H.M.S. “MARTIN,” TRAINING BRIG. LAUNCHED
1836.]

In olden days the brig was a favourite rig for small coasters. In
the marine paintings of Turner and the early part of the nineteenth
century one sees them frequently. In the eighteenth century, and even
as late as the nineteenth, the brig was used for the coal-carrying
trade. The nineteenth-century brigs often carried, besides the sails
seen in the two illustrations, an enormous fore-topgallant staysail.
But both the handiness of schooners and ketches began to oust her,
and the coming of the steam collier finally did for her in the
mercantile marine as, at a later date, she was abolished from the
Royal Navy.

[Illustration: FIG. 96. A HERMAPHRODITE BRIG, COMMONLY BUT
ERRONEOUSLY CALLED A BRIGANTINE.]

I have intentionally introduced the brig at this point,
notwithstanding that she is essentially a square-rigged ship, in
order that we may compare her the more easily with that compromise
between the square rig and fore-and-aft vessel, the brigantine.
Strictly speaking, the brigantine is square-rigged at her foremast,
but differs from the Hermaphrodite brig in carrying small squaresails
aloft at the main. She differs also from the full-rigged brig in
having no top at the mainmast and in carrying a fore-and-aft mainsail
and sometimes a main-staysail instead of a square mainsail and
try-sail. (The fore-and-aft sail at a brig’s mainmast is called a
try-sail.) The illustration in Fig. 96 represents a Hermaphrodite
brig, commonly and erroneously called a brigantine. The Hermaphrodite
brig, or brig-schooner, is square-rigged at her foremast like a brig,
but without a top forward, and carrying only a fore-and-aft mainsail
and gaff topsail on the mainmast. And here it may not be out of place
to mention another subtlety: while a barque has three masts, being
square-rigged at her fore and main like a ship, and differing from
a ship-rigged vessel in having no top at her mizzen, but carrying
a fore-and-aft spanker and gaff topsail, yet what is known among
sailormen as the “Jackass” barque resembles a barque proper, but has
no crosstrees, does not spread lower courses and has no tops. (Tops
are the platforms placed over the heads of the lower masts, while the
crosstrees are at the topmast heads, being used for giving a wider
spread to the standing rigging).

[Illustration: FIG. 97. THE “TILLIKUM,” SCHOONER-RIGGED “DUG-OUT,”
WHICH SAILED ROUND THE WORLD.]

The illustration seen in Fig. 97 shows one of the smallest
schooner-rigged craft that ever sailed the ocean. This is the famous
_Tillikum_, adapted from a “dug-out,” in which Captain J. C. Voss,
F.R.G.S., sailed round the world to England. The sketch which we give
here of this odd ship was made in November 1906, while she lay off
the Houses of Parliament. She has since changed ownership and been
fitted with a motor, and in her green paint is a familiar sight to
those who bring up in the Orwell off Pin Mill.

The origin of the ketch is also Dutch, although the word is in old
French _quaiche_ and in Spanish _queche_. We frequently find the
influence of the bomb-ketch in old pictures and engravings, in
which the mizzen is close up against the mainmast, and the latter
is stepped well abaft of amidships, so as to allow the shot fired
to clear the rigging, leaving a large fore-triangle. (See Fig. 62,
the _galiote à bombe_.) This influence is felt even as late as the
second half of the eighteenth century. The ketch is descended from
the Dutch galliot, which, besides having a gaff mizzen, had a sprit
mainsail like the barge, and with no boom, but three brails and one
row of reef-points. The usual vangs led down aft from the peak, and
she also had lee-runners. But, besides her triangular headsails,
consisting of a fore(stay)sail and a couple of jibs, she carried
also a small t’gallant sail, with big topsail below, and often a
large lower course below that—all these last three being square, as
on a full-rigged ship, and to this day many Baltic ketches continue
to be rigged in like manner. At the close of Charles II.’s reign we
find that among the 173 ships in the British Royal Navy there were
three ketches, but before this date, in his “Seamen’s Dictionary”
of 1644, Sir Henry Manwayring defines them simply as “a small boate
such as uses to come to Belinsgate with mackrell, oisters, &c.” From
the time of Charles I. the Dutch have had the privilege of mooring
three of their fish-carrying craft off Billingsgate in recognition
of “their straightforward dealings with us,” and any day the reader
likes to go down in the vicinity of London Bridge he will see two
or three Dutch schuyts swinging to their moorings. In an eighteenth
century work on naval architecture it is curious to see the galliot
also called a galleasse. In this case the mainsail has discarded
the sprit and taken on a small gaff with boom and loose foot. Two
rows of reef-points are also added, and the squaresails are still
there. An old English engraving also shows a close similarity to the
former bomb-ketch. But in the course of time all the squaresails were
abolished, the mainmast brought further forward, and the mizzen sail
enlarged so as to be not much smaller than the mainsail. Nowadays
nowhere is the modern ketch rig so prominent as on the east coast of
England, from as far north as Whitby to as far south as Ramsgate, and
even Brixham. The billy-boy, with her long raking bowsprit, setting
almost as many jibs as a full-rigged ship, and whose general design
bears the most remarkable likeness to the ship in the seal of Dam in
Fig. 40, is the Yorkshire adaptation of the old Dutch galliot, and,
with her leeboards and ketch rig, is well known in the North Sea. In
the ’seventies our East Coast fishermen were almost all rigged with
the lug-sail, but now some of the finest ketches will be found in the
fishing fleets of Yarmouth, Lowestoft, and Ramsgate. For powerful,
seaworthy craft, able to heave-to comfortably, and with the capacity
of riding out gales that few modern yachts with their cut-away bows
could survive, there is nothing on the sea, size for size, to beat
these ketches. In Fig. 98 we give an illustration of a Lowestoft
“drifter.” With her boomless mainsail and raking mizzen, setting a
jackyard topsail over both main and mizzen, she sets also in light
winds a large reaching jib.

[Illustration: FIG. 98. LOWESTOFT DRIFTER.]

[Illustration: FIG. 99. THAMES BARGE.]

We come next to the yawl. Correctly speaking this word has reference
not to rig but to shape. The Scandinavian _yol_ was a light vessel,
clinker-built and double-ended, like the Viking shape. The Yarmouth
yawls that we shall consider presently, were correctly called yawls
with their bow and stern alike. But the word has now come to refer
to a later adaptation of the ketch, in which the mainsail has grown
bigger and the mizzen smaller. In a ketch the mizzen mast is stepped
forward of the rudder-head; in the yawl the mizzen mast is abaft the
rudder-head. The _Jullanar_, for instance, in Fig. 117, is a yawl.
But to the Londoner no more familiar example could be found of a
yawl than the Thames barge, of which the illustration in Fig. 99
is a fair specimen. Still inheriting her Dutch-like spritsail and
brailing arrangement, she has also the vangs that were first attached
to the peak in the sixteenth century. The old-fashioned topsail is a
cross between a modern jackyarder and the old Dutch square topsail.
Aft she carries another small spritsail on the diminutive mizzen.
Smaller types of barge, called “stumpies,” have only pole-masts and
neither bowsprit nor jib nor topsail. But the larger type of barge,
carrying topmast and setting a big jib-headed topsail, known as
topsail barges, with their red-ochred canvas and the untanned jib,
always known by bargemen as the “spinnaker,” have grown to such sizes
that they go right down to the west end of the English Channel. Yet
these are rather ketches than yawls. But even in the Thames barges
developments have not ceased. Obviously Dutch, as they strike one in
a moment, the old Dutch bluff bows have been replaced by the straight
bow as seen in the sketch. A whole book could be written about the
barge and her ways, her history, her leeboards, her lengthy
topmast, and the wooden horse on which the staysail works; but we
must pass on.

[Illustration: FIG. 100. NORFOLK WHERRY.]

Curiously Dutch-like, too, is the Norfolk wherry seen in Fig. 100,
with her one enormous sail, her mast fitted in a tabernacle for ease
in lowering, unsupported by shrouds or rigging of any sort other
than the forestay by which the mast is eased down. Only one halyard
is required for both peak and throat, which are raised by means of
a winch forward of the mast. She has no leeboards, nevertheless she
draws under three feet of water: although I have heard her sweepingly
condemned as defying all existing rules, yet the way she can sail
right close into the wind is incredible to those who have not seen
her. In running with her bonnet off and her sail close reefed she
gripes badly and is a veritable handful as she comes sailing into
Great Yarmouth from across Breydon Water or tearing through the
rushes of Barton Broad and down the tortuous and narrow Ant. Within
recent years, now that the Norfolk and Suffolk waterways have become
a tourist resort, the wherry has changed her face a little and become
smarter, and the tanned sail is often allowed to remain white, while
the hatches have been taken away and a cabin roof, allowing plenty of
head-room with ladies’ saloons, pianos and other luxuries, have come
in. But all the time the wherry remains as a useful cargo boat for
bringing coals and timber from the ports of Lowestoft and Yarmouth
inland to Norwich and the East Anglian villages, returning with eels,
or marsh hay for thatching. Sometimes one notices them, in settled
weather, with a fair wind steal quietly out from Lowestoft harbour
and make a sea passage round to Yarmouth, but as Mr. Warington Smyth
well says in his “Mast and Sail,” “in the smallest wind and sea the
wherry loses her head entirely and develops a suicidal tendency to
bury herself and crew.”

[Illustration: FIG. 101. DHOW-RIGGED YACHT.]

[Illustration: FIG. 102. SUEZ DHOWS, WITH A SIBBICK RATER.]

[Illustration: FIG. 103. MEDITERRANEAN FELUCCA.

_From the model in the South Kensington Museum._]

After the squaresail had for so many centuries held sway among the
earliest dwellers of the earth, the lateen began stealthily to
assert itself as we saw in the first chapters. Although Holland set
the example in the sixteenth century of cutting up the lateen shape
into the cutter rig, yet in the Mediterranean, along the East Coast
of Africa and in the Indian Ocean generally, the lateen has refused
to be made obsolete. The illustration in Fig. 101 represents a Bombay
yacht of the second half of the nineteenth century rigged with a
couple of lateens, and masts that rake forward at a considerable
angle. Every tourist to Egypt is familiar with the picturesque
lateens and lofty yards of which Fig. 102, showing a fleet of these
with a small Sibbick rater in between, affords a study in contrast
between the conservative East and the progressive West. The sketch
was made at Suez. The felucca in Fig. 103 is a well-known lateen type
in the Mediterranean, with her white and green, her square stern and
single deck. The sketch here shown has been made from a charming
little model in the South Kensington Museum, and represents one of
the familiar two-masters seen off the Spanish coast. The tack and
sheets and rigging are shown so clearly that we need not stop to
indicate them. In old paintings and prints we see that the felucca
type in the Mediterranean developed into vessels of considerable
tonnage with three masts. The Venetians and Greeks and Genoese, as
well as the piratical Moors and the other Mediterranean inhabitants,
used them both as cargo carriers and ships of war. They are in fact
the lineal descendants of the ancient galleys. Further modifications
include the addition of a jib, though the Southerner has not followed
the universal Northern practice of transforming his lateen into a
mainsail. Sometimes we find old prints showing a felucca with the
addition also of a mizzen spritsail similar to that on the modern
barge. The French signified by the word _brigantin_ a two-masted
lateen-rigged galley with oars as auxiliary. But there came into
use that compromise between lateen and squaresail that in Northern
Europe we have seen to exist between the pure fore-and-after and the
square-rigger. Thus, for instance, one finds ships rigged with a
large lateen on the foremast, the mainmast being square-rigged with
mainsail, topsail and t’gallant, while the mizzen has a lateen with
square topsail. The reader who wishes to see the different varieties
of lateen and lateen-plus-square rig is referred to Mr. Warington
Smyth’s interesting volume “Mast and Sail,” while for details as to
design and rigging he will find some valuable information in Admiral
Paris’ “Souvenirs de Marine.”

[Illustration: FIG. 104. HAILAM JUNK.]

[Illustration: FIG. 105. CHINESE JUNK.

_From the model in the South Kensington Museum._]

The Chinese in their own independent way went on developing from the
early Egyptian models and have been not inaptly called the Dutchmen
of the East in their nautical tendencies. They developed quickly
but then remained at a standstill, whilst the European has gone
on by slow steps of progression. Adopting rather the sail of the
lugger than the old Egyptian squaresail, the Chinese made it into a
balance-lug and stiffened it with bamboo-battens. The illustration
in Fig. 104 was sketched by Mr. Warington Smyth (through whose
courtesy it is here reproduced) near Kaw Sichang, and represents a
Hailam junk. The sail of the Chinaman is hoisted up a pole-mast, the
halyard passing through a large double block attached to the yard
and a treble block at the masthead, a hauling parrel keeping yard
to mast and helping to peak the sail when reefed. Reefing with the
Chinese consists simply in letting go the halyard, when the weight
of sail and battens brings the sail into the topping lifts: two or
more battens are bunched together along the boom. The illustration
in Fig. 105 will show in further detail the rigging of a Chinese
junk. This has been specially sketched from a fine model in the South
Kensington Museum. Built of soft wood, she has a full bottom and
water-tight compartments. The mizzen mast will be noticed to be in
duplicate, one on each quarter, only the leeward one being used under
way, the sails being of matting. The rudder is remarkable, unwieldy,
and projecting deep into the water, but capable of being raised by
means of a windlass when in shallows. The windlass in the bows raises
the three anchors, which are made of hard wood, the flukes being
tipped with iron, whilst the stock is in the crown instead of in the
top of the shank as in European anchors. Very similar to this model
was the famous Chinese junk _Keying_, which caused some sensation
by sailing from Canton to the Thames in 1847-8. These craft, owing
to their light draught and bulky tophamper, are not much good
going to windward, so that one is not surprised that the _Keying_
took 477 days on the voyage to England. In crossing China seas they
usually take advantage of the favourable monsoons. Their enormous
crescent-shaped sheer makes them excellent bad weather ships. Their
tonnage varies between 300 and 800. The _Keying_ came round the Horn,
and her rudder, when let down, drew 22 feet of water. It hung loose,
as seen in the model, and was perforated, weighing nearly eight tons.
Under way it necessitated fifteen men, as well as a luff-tackle
purchase, to work the helm. She had no keelson, and the mast, instead
of being stepped, was supported by a toggle. The seams of the vessel
were paid with a kind of putty-cement made out of burnt pounded
oyster shells and oil from the chinam-tree. The mainsail weighed no
less than nearly nine tons, and took the crew two hours to hoist.
Towards the end of last year (1908) the Australian Customs officials
saw with amazement the arrival in their waters of another Chinese
junk, the _Whang-Ho_. This craft, which was over a hundred years old,
and was previously a pirate ship, set out from China for a voyage to
San Francisco. Afterwards she sailed for the eastern side of America,
but in making an attempt to round the Horn was less fortunate
than the _Keying_, a wave carrying away her huge rudder; but she
eventually reached Australia. She had previously touched at Tahiti,
and nothing was heard of her until she reached Thursday Island, 100
days out.

Returning now to Northern Europe, we find the lug-sail surviving
especially in fishing craft for which it possesses certain peculiar
advantages. In Fig. 106 we have the sail plan of a Blankenberg boat.
Those who are acquainted with the coast-line around Ostend cannot
have failed to notice these craft with their leeboards raised, hauled
up the sandy beach. Here the standing lug is set after the French
style, the old mediæval bowline being still preserved from the
squaresail to set the lug straight when on a wind. Notice that the
foresail is right in the eyes of the ship, so that the rig looks as
if it was no distant relative of the vessel with the artemon that
carried St. Paul on his voyage.

[Illustration: FIG. 106. BLANKENBERG BOAT.]

Every one who has cruised down Channel is familiar with the French
_Chasse-Marée_, a curious figure on the sea-line, with her lug-sails
and three crazy-looking masts. Over the mainmast she sets a square
topsail, while forward she carries a long bowsprit with a small jib,
the latter being in shape more of an equal-sided triangle than the
modern English jib, while the French lug-sail is sheeted very high,
as will be seen from the sketch (see Fig. 107).

[Illustration: FIG. 107. FRENCH “CHASSE-MARÉE.”]

At one time Norfolk was famous for its beach yawls. Those who have
visited Great Yarmouth will have noticed these very large open boats
painted white with (if I remember correctly) a riband of green
running along the gunwale. Double-ended, they are now usually rigged
cutter fashion and used as pleasure boats. Clinker-built, they have
a very fine entrance and a clean run, and sometimes measure 50 feet
in length and 10 feet beam. They used to carry three lug-sails and
jib owing to French influence. In the days when sailing ships were
more frequent than to-day, Yarmouth Roads were usually a crowded
anchorage, and these yawls would be launched almost every day during
the winter to assist a vessel that had been picked up by the shoals.
Nowadays one still sees them used for bringing pilots ashore, but it
is at the Yarmouth and Lowestoft regattas that one is able to realise
alike their enormous speed on a reach and the dexterity of each crew,
numbering about twenty. The three-masted lug rig of olden days has
now given way to a two-master with a dipping lug for the main and
standing mizzen, besides a small jib forward.

[Illustration: FIG. 108. SCOTCH “ZULU.”]

Until about 1860 the Scotch fishing boat was entirely influenced
by Norway, and even to-day no one could deny that this influence
is altogether wanting. But at last the fisherman began to seek the
herring further out to sea, and so a bolder, decked ship was evolved,
and clinker-build gave way to carvel, and the design was given finer
lines and greater draught. I have watched a fleet of such vessels
as in Fig. 108 running into Scarborough Bay with an onshore breeze
in the soft light of a September afternoon, with their yacht-like
lines and their fine massive hulls suggesting an ideal combination of
strength and beauty. Most of these large “Zulus,” as they are called,
carry steam capstans for getting in the heavy nets, hoisting sail
and warping into harbour. Within the last few years they have been
fitted with steering wheels instead of helms. They are good boats to
windward, and are able to carry their enormous lugs longer than most
vessels could keep aloft a similar area of sail.

[Illustration: FIG. 109. PENZANCE LUGGER.]

The Cornish lugger is able to carry a larger mizzen but a smaller lug
forward than his Scotch cousin. Fig. 109 is an example of a Penzance
lugger. She draws also more water aft than the “Zulu.” The Penzance
luggers are famous all over England for their seaworthiness and
easy lines. They are usually about fifteen or twenty tons, have in
proportion to their size very high bulwarks to encounter the Atlantic
seas, and an exaggerated outrigger over the stern unsupported by
stays and cocked up at an angle to clear the sea when the ship is
pitching. Her mizzen is longer than her mainmast, and rakes forward
at a great angle. Sometimes they set a topsail, as seen in the sketch
over the mizzen: and at times they also run out a bowsprit and jib.

[Illustration: FIG. 110. DEAL GALLEY PUNT.]

We could not close our list of characteristic luggers without
including that brave little ship the Deal galley-punt (see Fig.
110). Chapman in his “Architectura Navalis Mercatoria,” published
in 1768,[117] shows a Deal lugger (or as she is called then a Deal
cutter) with three spritsails, the mizzen having a bumpkin,
whilst a jib is set on a bowsprit forward: but this type has become
obsolete. In those days they were engaged in taking out from the
shore heavy anchors and cables to vessels in the Downs which stood
in need of them. With the advent of steam and improved holding gear
their days of usefulness departed. But a smaller type, the Deal
lugger, of which we now speak, is still a feature of the sailing
craft at the eastern end of the Channel as she goes about her
business “hovelling” or hovering on the look-out for such odd jobs as
taking pilots ashore or attending on shipping between Dungeness and
the North Foreland. Never a ship gets picked up by the treacherous
Goodwins but the Deal lugger comes running out in any weather,
ready for a salvage job and a third of its value as a reward. Even
whilst these lines are passing through the press, they have been
busy standing by the _Mahratta_ liner stranded on the Goodwins, and
hurrying ashore with the passengers and cargo of tea salved from the
hold of the big steamer. These little craft sail very close to the
wind and are out in the worst of weathers, and require considerable
skill in handling. The one lug-sail has to be lowered and hoisted at
each tack, but they are wonderfully quick both under sail and when
rowed. Any sailing man will tell you how excellent a sail for lifting
a boat the lug-sail is, and well the little Deal galley needs it. The
yard of the sail hooks on to a traveller and is hoisted by halyards
up the mast, a purchase being used to “sweat” it down taught. The
rudder is made easily detachable, supported on pintles with a
rope-strop attached. It is her length in proportion to her beam that
gives her such speed. Clinker-built, the Deal lugger is about thirty
feet long. Her mast is placed some distance from the bows, and is
very stumpy, but in spite of this the Deal galley punt is a wonderful
little ship on a reach.

Having shown the directions in which the development of smaller
ships has taken place, and especially in the trading and fishing
craft, let us now turn our attention to that very modern development,
the yacht. As we set out not to write a history of yachting but of
sailing ships, we shall consider not the marvellous growth of the
queen of sports, but the influence which that has had in developing a
particular species of ship used entirely for the purpose of pleasure
and racing. We alluded in an earlier chapter to King Edgar, whose
“sommer progresses and yerely chiefe pastimes were the sailing
round about this whole Isle of Albion.” He at least showed the real
spirit of a yachtsman, and had he lived in later times he might have
established the sport on a sound footing many years before it began
to prosper.

But let us make no mistake about this word yacht. Of Dutch
derivation, and related to the Norwegian _jaegt_, the word in the
seventeenth century signified a transport for royalty or some
individual of distinguished rank. In that way we could include those
esneccas mentioned earlier in this volume which were prepared for
carrying British royalty across from these shores to France. But it
was not until the early part of the seventeenth century that the
yacht as a special type of vessel, distinct from one temporarily
adjusted for a short voyage, was produced. As other fore-and-afters
first saw light in Holland at this time, so it was but natural that
the yacht should originate there. From old paintings and prints we
see them rigged after the manner of those Dutch fore-and-afters which
we mentioned as to be seen there in previous pages of this chapter.
Especially popular for yachts was the sloepe rig with the two masts
and sails but no headsails, although the boomless but gaff mainsail,
fitted with brails not unlike the rig of the bawley, was also found.
The high sterns, square and much decorated with carving and gilt, the
comparatively low bluff bows and the pair of leeboards were the most
conspicuous features. The rig was usually cutter or sloop (in the
sense of having one mast mainsail and foresail, but without jib).
Later on we find ketches being favoured.

In 1660 the Dutch presented Charles II. with a yacht called the
_Mary_, “from whence,” writes Sir Anthony Deane to Pepys, “came the
improvement of our present yachts; for until that time we had not
heard of such a name in England.” This _Mary_ was of a hundred tons
and was the first yacht to appear on our Navy list. She was lost in
1675 near Holyhead. From this model Christopher Pett in 1661 built
the _Anne_ at Woolwich, her tonnage, beam, and length of keel being
the same as those of the _Mary_, but she drew three feet less water.
In the same year Charles was presented with another but smaller
yacht of only 35 tons, called the _Bezan_, which also came from the
Dutch. From the arrival of the _Mary_ various sized yachts began to
be built in England, of which the tonnage gradually increased. The
_Katherine_, built in 1661, was captured by the Dutch in 1673. So
far had this new departure progressed in our country that in 1674 a
design was made for two yachts to be built at Portsmouth for the King
of France in imitation of Charles II.’s. But the largest built about
this time was the new _Mary_, to replace the first one lost. Of 166
tons, she was launched in 1677. The smallest yachts were the _Minion_
of 22 tons, and the _Jemmy_ of 25 tons, and the _Isle of Wight_ of a
like tonnage. Incidentally we find in the Naval MSS. of the time that
the dimensions of the biggest yacht’s mast of the year 1683 were:
length 20 yards, “bigness” (_i.e._, thickness) 20 inches.

It was during the reign of that apostle of hedonism, Charles II.,
that the yacht became not merely the vessel of state but of pleasure.
He introduced into England yacht racing, although the Dutch had
for a long time delighted in regattas and naval sham fights with
yachts. In 1661 Charles sailed in a match from Greenwich to Gravesend
and back. One impulse that had been given to the Dutch to build
so-called yachts with finer lines and high capabilities of speed
was the trade carried on to the East by their Dutch East India
Company, and it was this company that had made Charles the present
of the first yacht he ever possessed. During the eighteenth century
yachting began to be a new sport for noblemen and wealthy gentlemen,
especially in the neighbourhood of Cork. By the end of the century
the Solent was becoming the cruising ground for a large number of
English yachts, and in 1812 a yacht club was started at the Medina
Hotel, East Cowes. In 1817 this newly-formed yacht club was joined
by the Prince Regent, who used to cruise between the Wight and
Brighton in the _Royal George_.[118] George III. had also patronised
yachting, and the illustration in Plan 4 gives some idea of his yacht
the _Royal Sovereign_. Launched at Deptford in 1804 she drew 9 feet
forward and a foot more aft. She was copper-bottomed with a streak of
yellow painted above, with another streak of blue above that, while
her stern was ornamented with medallions of the cardinal virtues.
Neptune presided over the stern, while the figurehead represented
her Majesty. It will be seen at once how similar in colouring and
decoration she was to the type of ships prevalent in Charles II.’s
time. She was said to have been very fast and beautifully decorated,
as well inside as out. She was 96 feet 1 inch long on deck with a
breadth of 25 feet 7 inches. Her tonnage was 280-18/94. She was
ship-rigged and carried royals and stuns’ls, judging from a print
of 1821. In the external decoration of this yacht we can see the
influence which is still manifested in the royal steam yachts of this
country to-day. The lavish display of gold leaf, the heavy stern and
general clumsiness—all vile inheritances from the days of Charles II.
when naval architects knew no better—were all reproduced in the old
_Victoria and Albert_ and have been perpetuated even in the newest
royal yacht the _Alexandria_.

It is only with the nineteenth century that yachting really begins,
but it was not till after the Crimean War that the sport began in
earnest. At the beginning of the nineteenth century the cutters were
built on the lines of the revenue cutters, which as we saw just now,
owed much to Dutch influence. The reader who wishes to see what
clumsy creatures they were has only to look at Turner’s pictures
(see, for example, the cutter in Fig. 71). In such a painting as
Charles Brooking’s _The Calm_, numbered 1475 in the National Gallery,
we readily see the square topsails above the fore-and-aft mainsail
and headsails. Brooking lived from 1723 to 1759, but fifty years
later the cutter had remained much the same. The spars these yachts
carried were enormous, and they were built of such strength that
they were up to the Government standard. Although the cutters were
of large dimensions, sometimes having a tonnage of 150, yet they
were very tubby, round creatures, their proportions being three
beams in length and heavily ballasted after the mediæval manner with
gravel, yet sometimes also with iron ore. But as match sailing became
commoner, naturally a means was sought for making the cumbersome
craft less heavy. The heavy ballast remained, but both timbers and
planking were of less thickness. Hitherto of clinker build, this
gradually gave way to carvel-work. One of the most famous yachts
of the first quarter of the century was the _Arrow_, built clinker
fashion in 1822 and still in existence.

[Illustration: FIG. 111. THE YACHT “KESTREL,” 202 TONS. OWNED BY THE
EARL OF YARBOROUGH, COMMODORE OF THE R.Y.S.]

[Illustration: FIG. 112. THE YACHT “XARIFA.” OWNED BY THE EARL OF
WILTON.]

The illustration in Fig. 111 represents the _Kestrel_, 202 tons,
belonging to the Earl of Yarborough, Commodore of the Royal Yacht
Squadron. In the early ’forties she was a well-known ship. She is
rigged as a Hermaphrodite brig, that is to say she is brig-rigged on
her foremast but schooner-rigged on her main. She also carries a tier
of guns. The influence, indeed, of the Royal Navy on these early
yachts is notable. The cutters were influenced by the Government
revenue cutters and the bigger yachts by the Naval brigs. Fig.
112 also shows a yacht of this period. This is the _Xarifa_ which
belonged to the second Earl of Wilton. She is rigged as a topsail
schooner and also carries guns. The rigging of yachts at this time
was chiefly of hemp, but, as will be seen from the accompanying
illustrations, the sails were very baggy.

In the ’fifties racing between yachts went rapidly ahead. The crack
cutters of the south coast were the _Arrow_, 84 tons, the _Lulworth_,
82 tons, the _Louisa_, 180 tons, and the _Alarm_ 193 tons. A general
improvement was taking place. The old-fashioned gravel ballast was
thrown out and lead was slowly but surely introduced in spite of the
criticism that it would strain the ship and cause her to plunge badly
in a seaway. Next, instead of inside the lead was put outside below
the keel. Finally the tubby proportions vanished and yachts were
given greater length, greater depth but narrower beam. Early in the
’fifties Thomas Wanhill of Poole introduced the raking sternpost.
Instead of the Dutch-like bow the long clipper bow, now famous among
the mercantile ships, was coming into popularity.

But a new force was to come from across the Atlantic which had
far-reaching effects on the yachts of this country. Let us return
once more to Massachusetts. The theory of the advantage possessed
by a sharp entrance and hollow water-lines had been proved, in the
case of the Gloucester fishing and pilot schooners, to be sound
and correct. Then it was decided to build a yacht on similar but
improved lines: so in 1851 was launched the famous _America_,
costing £4000. She was sailed across to England and on August 22,
1851, was the winning yacht for the special cup offered by the
Royal Yacht Squadron. In the race round the Isle of Wight she beat
the pick of our cutters and schooners so handsomely as to make
yachtsmen and yacht-builders, designers and sail-makers open their
eyes in amazement. The cup was afterwards presented by the owners of
_America_ to the New York Yacht Club as a perpetual challenge trophy
to be raced for by yachts of all nations. The reader is well aware
that in spite of various plucky attempts we have not yet succeeded in
bringing it back to the country where it was manufactured.

[Illustration: FIG. 113. THE SCHOONER “ALARM” AS SHE APPEARED WHEN
REBUILT IN 1852.

From a contemporary print, by kind permission of the Royal Victoria
Yacht Club, Ryde.

_Photo. West & Son._]

After the success of _America_ a change was made in the old type of
yacht. The _Alarm_ which had been built in 1834 as a cutter of 193
tons, was in 1852, consequent on _America’s_ victory, lengthened
20 feet by the bow and converted into a schooner of 248 tons. The
illustration in Fig. 113, which is reproduced by kind permission of
the Royal Victoria Yacht Club, Ryde, shows the _Alarm_ after she
had been rigged after the manner of _America_ with one headsail,
having its foot laced to a boom, with a foresail having gaff but no
boom, and with a mainsail with both gaff and boom. As here seen she
justified the alterations made in her and remained for many years the
fastest schooner of the fleet. But not only in rig and design did
_America_ make a complete revolution. Hitherto our sails had been
mere wind-bags, but the _America_ had her sails made so as to lace to
the spars, while ours had been loose-footed on the boom. The American
yacht’s canvas thus set flatter and she could hold a better wind
than our craft. Henceforth English sail-makers adopted the new idea.
Schooners at least took to the new shape at once but the cutters
were a little time before they followed the lead thus given to
them. It was to America, therefore, that the last existing relic of
mediævalism in British ships was banished off the face of the waters
for ever.

[Illustration: FIG. 114. THE “OIMARA.” BUILT IN 1867.]

In 1852 the famous cutter _Arrow_, for the same reason as had
transformed the _Alarm_, was rebuilt. Her previous length when she
was first built as far back as 1823 was only 3·35 times her beam.
In 1852, also, Mr. William Fife of the famous “Fife of Fairlie” firm
came into prominence with the _Cymba_. Sail-making in the hands of
Lapthorn & Ratsey proceeded along scientific lines, and eventually
cotton was used instead of flax. In the ’sixties, following the
example set by the builders of the clipper-ships, iron framework was
used in combination with wooden skin, and from the early ’seventies
to the ’eighties the clipper-bow had attained such success on big
ships that it became of great popularity on yachts. But during the
’sixties the old straight-stem cutters were at the height of their
fame. The _Oimara_, seen in Fig. 114 with the long bowsprit of the
period, was a famous racing craft of the south coast. Built in 1867
by Mr. William Steele of Messrs. Robert Steele & Co., Greenock,
the well-known builder of clipper-ships, her tonnage was 163. She
sailed a memorable race round the Isle of Wight in August of the
following year against the American schooners _Sappho_, _Aline_ and
others. Going east about, _Oimara_ led the fleet until the Needles
were rounded, but running back to Cowes against the ebb tide, she
was beaten by the schooners. This fine ship is still afloat in Poole
harbour above the bridge, and is used as a houseboat.

The _Aline_ just mentioned was another beauty of her day. Built
by Messrs. Camper & Nicholson of Gosport in 1860, she was the
first yacht to get away from the raking mast so well seen in the
illustration of the _Alarm_. In the _Aline_ the mast was stepped
almost upright and she was also given a running bowsprit and jib.
Another fast ship was the famous _Egeria_, 153-ton schooner, built by
Wanhill at Poole. She was at her prime during the ’sixties, and beat
_Aline_ during the former’s maiden race in 1865.

[Illustration: FIG. 115. THE “BLOODHOUND.” BUILT IN 1874.]

During the ’seventies and till the ’eighties, the tendency was
to build yachts whose dimensions were still deeper, narrower and
longer. Beam was thought deserving of little consideration and
altogether undervalued until the year 1886, when an entire change
of feeling came. The illustration in Fig. 115 shows the wonderful
old _Bloodhound_. She was built by Mr. William Fife of Fairlie in
1874 for the Marquis of Ailsa and was one of the famous class of
40-tonners which flourished during the ’seventies and into the
’eighties. During the six years she belonged to her first owner she
won about £2500 worth of prizes, and afterwards changed hands. Last
year, however, Lord Ailsa re-purchased her, and with new sails the
old ship showed that her marvellous turn of speed had not deserted
her. She did remarkably well during Cowes week until she had the
misfortune to be sunk in collision with _L’Esperance_, and lay for
some time at the entrance to Cowes fairway, a sad sight, with her
masts showing above water and her crew at work salving what they
could. She has since been raised, and this year is again racing with
surprising success.

[Illustration: FIG. 116. THE AUXILIARY TOPSAIL SCHOONER-YACHT
“SUNBEAM.” REGISTERED TONNAGE, 227. OWNED BY LORD BRASSEY.

_Photo. West & Son._]

Few yachts, perhaps, are so well-known in name, at least, to the
general reader, as the _Sunbeam_, in Fig. 116. Built in 1874, and
owned by that enthusiastic yachtsman and experienced navigator Lord
Brassey, the _Sunbeam_ is an auxiliary topsail-yard schooner. She
was designed by Mr. St. Clare Byrne and is built of teak with iron
frames. Her length over all is 170 feet; beam 27½ feet; depth 13¾
feet. Her displacement is 576 tons; her registered tonnage 227; her
draught 13½ feet; while her sail area as now altered is 7950 square
feet. She has cruised round the world, and been into almost every
port where she could get. She raced across the Atlantic in 1905 to
the Lizard, with the _Valhalla_ among the competitors, although it
was not to be expected that she would come in first against such
an extreme type as the _Atlantic_. In her time she has covered as
her best run under canvas, 299 knots from noon to noon, whilst her
highest speed, also under sail alone, was 15 knots. She is still
happily with us, and is a familiar sight at Cowes, where she fits
out.

[Illustration: FIG. 117. THE YAWL “JULLANAR.” BUILT IN 1875.]

During the ’seventies, thanks to Mr. William Froude and others,
experiments of the highest educative value were made to discover the
laws which governed the resistance of water to bodies moving through
it. This led to a scientific basis on which to model the lines of
yachts’ hulls. But suddenly and unexpectedly, from Maldon, on the
Blackwater, in a remote corner of Essex, a Mr. E. H. Bentall, not a
professional naval architect but an agricultural implement maker, who
had received but little training in naval architecture, designed and
had built the now famous yacht the _Jullanar_, in 1875. Since length
means speed, he gave her much of this, whilst for stability she was
given a fairly deep draught. But getting right away from existing
conventions, he had the courage to dispense with the old-fashioned
straight stem and stern, and cut away all dead-wood from both. And so
the _Jullanar_, with her easy lines, and rigged as a yawl, came into
being. She had a tonnage of 126 (Thames measurement); length over all
110½ feet; beam 16·6 feet; and a draught of 13½ feet. She immediately
displayed such remarkable speed and was so successful as a racer that
her lines considerably influenced the late Mr. G. L. Watson, the
famous yacht architect of the nineteenth century, in designing the
_Thistle_, although this ship did not come into being until 1887. The
sketch in Fig. 117, showing the hull and rigging of the _Jullanar_,
has been made from the fine little model in the South Kensington
Museum.

[Illustration: FIG. 118. THE “SATANITA.” BUILT IN 1893.

_Photo. West & Son._]

[Illustration: FIG. 119. KING EDWARD VII.’S CUTTER “BRITANNIA,”
LAUNCHED 1893, SHOWING THE MAINSAIL BEING HOISTED BY FOURTEEN OF THE
CREW.

_Photo. S. Cribb._]

Yacht-design has been considerably modified by contemporary existing
measurement rules. Thus, when in the ’eighties the only taxed
dimensions were, not length over all, but length on water-line and
sail area, the temptation to introduce overhang both at bow and
stern was irresistible. In _Jullanar_ the germ of the idea existed,
but it developed to its fullest extent during the ’nineties, and so
by a curious fatality one becomes witness of still another revival,
more strange and curious than all the others, the revival of
that which was indeed one of the most characteristic features of
the Egyptian craft in the early dynasties, the overhanging bow and
stern. In 1893 was built the _Satanita_, in which this last-mentioned
feature is well shown. (See Fig. 118.) This powerful beauty has on
the water-line 97·7 feet, and an extreme beam of 24·7 feet, and
a draught of 16·5 feet. Her sail area (Y.R.A.) was in her Solent
days 9923 square feet. The beautifully-fitting sails seen in the
accompanying illustration are in wonderful contrast to those hollow
bags used in the pre-_America_ days. In the same year was launched
King Edward’s (then Prince of Wales’) _Britannia_, which with Captain
Carter at her helm, won both fame and a considerable number of prizes
during the ’nineties. Her length on the water-line is 87·8 feet; her
extreme beam 23·66 feet; and draught 15 feet. The illustration in
Fig. 119 of the counter of _Britannia_ has been specially included
to give the reader some idea of the weight of her mainsail, which,
as will be noticed, is being hoisted by no less than fourteen
hands on the halyard, including the ship’s cook and steward. The
year 1893 was made memorable by the launch also of the _Valkyrie_,
one of the famous trio of yachts of the same name. She measured
on the water-line 86·8 feet; her extreme beam was 22·33 feet. The
illustration in Fig. 120 shows _Valkyrie I._ It was during this year
that beam, being no longer taxed, was allowed to show its value, and
ever since that time the tendency has continued for a more wholesome
type of boat, instead of the vicious old plank-on-edge class of craft.

[Illustration: FIG. 120. THE “VALKYRIE I.” OWNED BY THE EARL OF
DUNHAVEN.

_Photo. West & Son._]

[Illustration: FIG. 121. THE AUXILIARY SHIP-RIGGED YACHT “VALHALLA.”
1490 TONS. BUILT IN 1892.

_Photo. West & Son._]

The illustration in Fig. 121 is of the _Valhalla_, which, like the
_Sunbeam_, has auxiliary engines and is one of the largest and finest
sailing yachts in the world. Under the ownership of the Earl of
Crawford she has made lengthy voyages to distant countries, and was
one of the fleet which raced in company with the _Sunbeam_ from the
U.S.A. to the Lizard for the German Emperor’s Cup, obtaining third
prize, and doing the passage across the Atlantic in 14 days 2 hours,
using sail only. She was built in 1892, and was first rigged as a
privateer of a hundred years ago with stun’s’ls. She even had her
ward-room, gun-room and armoury after the manner of the naval ships
of a century ago. In the accompanying illustration she is seen with
courses, topsails, t’gallants and royals. But when she came into the
hands of Lord Crawford the stun’s’ls were abolished, and she was
given double topsails instead of single so as to facilitate her being
worked with less labour. The old-fashioned deck arrangement below was
also entirely changed. This handsome 1490-ton yacht has recently been
sold, and left English waters to become an American training-ship.

[Illustration: FIG. 122. THE AMERICAN CUP DEFENDER “COLUMBIA.”
LAUNCHED IN 1899.

_Photo. West & Son._]

Although American yachting existed long before the races for the
America Cup, yet these contests have given an enormous fillip in
the United States to the building of cutters as apart from their
fast schooners. Such vessels, built to defend the Cup, as the
_Defender_, launched in 1895, the _Columbia_ in 1899 (see Fig. 122),
the _Constitution_ in 1901, and the _Reliance_ in 1903, are about
90 feet on the load water-line, and carry about 13,500 square feet
of canvas; though when _Reliance_ beat _Shamrock III._, the former
carried over 16,000 square feet. But the most popular American large
racing cutters are the 70-footers. In build the Americans have been
accustomed to use lighter scantlings than we on this side of the
Atlantic. _Meteor_, in Fig. 123, the well-known schooner belonging
to the German Emperor, was the product of an American yard. The
photograph here reproduced was taken while she was racing for the
King’s Cup inside the Isle of Wight.

[Illustration: FIG. 123. THE SCHOONER-YACHT “METEOR.” OWNED BY HIS
MAJESTY THE GERMAN EMPEROR.

_Photo. S. Cribb._]

Some sensation was caused in the Solent last summer by the arrival
and success of the _Germania_, a remarkably fast and pretty schooner,
notable as showing the ability to which German yacht designers and
builders have now attained. That we can in England still build
cruising as well as racing schooners is proved by two such different
examples as the _Elizabeth_ and the _Pampas_. The sail plan of the
former will be found in Plan 5. Launched in 1906 from the yard of
Messrs. White Brothers of Cowes from designs by Mr. H. W. White, her
tonnage (Thames measurement) is 236, her length over all 132 feet,
but on the water-line 93½ feet. Her draught is 12½ feet, and her sail
area 7938 square feet. She is also fitted with a motor that can be
run on either paraffin or petrol with a two-bladed propeller, giving
a mean speed under motor alone of six miles per hour. The deck plan
and longitudinal section showing motor installation will be found in
Plans 6 and 7.

The _Pampas_ is one of the most interesting yachts of 1908. In
her will be found the very last word in schooner designing and
building. The requirements were that she should be suitable to
go to any part of the world in comfort and with speed. In order
therefore that she might not be handicapped in the Doldrums she was
fitted with a 60-horse-power motor giving a speed of six knots in
smooth water. Designed by Mr. C. E. Nicholson, and built by Messrs.
Camper & Nicholson for Señor Aaron de Anchorena, of Buenos Ayres,
she has considerably more overhang than the _Elizabeth_, and has
shown herself to be very fast under sail alone. The sail and rigging
plan in Plan 8 will explain itself, whilst from the other plans the
general internal arrangement of this most modern of yachts will
be realised. She has between her two masts a sunken deck-house, a
feature that has recently become very popular on sailing yachts. The
two large cabins athwart the ship are fitted in satinwood, and other
accommodation is in ivory white. Electric light and ventilating fans
are also found on her, and she is classed twenty years A1 at Lloyd’s.

[Illustration: FIG. 124. “WHITE HEATHER II.,” 23-MÈTRE CUTTER.

_Photo. West & Son._]

To return to the English cutters, one of the most interesting of
modern yachts is that seen in Fig. 124, which represents _White
Heather II._ For size and sweet lines, with her bold bows and white
graceful hull, her lofty mast and her mountain of canvas, she is an
imposing sight if one comes across her on the Solent. She is at her
best in a strong wind; in light winds she used to be no match for the
latest _Shamrock_. But during the past winter _White Heather_ has had
some structural alterations made to improve her power in light winds.

[Illustration: FIG. 125. “SHAMROCK IV.,” 23-MÈTRE CUTTER. OWNED BY
SIR THOMAS LIPTON. LAUNCHED 1908.

_Photo. West & Son._]

An important step was taken in 1906, when an international conference
was held to devise such an international rule as would be acceptable
to the whole of yachting Europe. During the last fifteen years
various rating rules had been in force at different times. It was
now felt that something should be done to prevent the success of the
racing-machine and skimming-dish type, and recent rating rules had
indeed tended to produce a wholesome cruiser that was nevertheless
good for racing. The conference therefore formulated a new rule based
on that which had produced such recent healthy types as _Nyria_; but
a premium was placed on freeboard and a check on clumsy overhangs,
in order that a thoroughly healthy type of sea-going yacht might be
evolved that should be good as well for cruising as for racing. Care
was taken also to ensure the requisite strength in construction. The
rule came into force on January 1, 1908. Under this rule, _Shamrock
IV._, seen in Fig. 125, was built, and during her maiden season last
year she showed that in light weather there was nothing of her size
to catch her. In spite of adverse criticisms the new rule has in it
much that is likely to be an influence for good; and since it is to
be in force for ten years, it will certainly add to the prosperity of
yachting by introducing to an extent hitherto unknown the element of
international racing.

_Shamrock_, the fourth of that name owned by Sir Thomas Lipton,
belongs to the 23-metre class. She was designed by Mr. William
Fife and built by Messrs. William Fife & Son of Fairlie. She is of
composite construction, her planking being of mahogany and her frames
of steel. In yachting, as in the biggest sailing ships, wire rigging
has now ousted the old-fashioned hemp. Runners, topping lifts,
bobstay falls, outhauls, halyards—all are of wire. Racing boats and
many cruisers now have rigging screws too, while the custom as to
ballast is to bolt most of it outside the keel.

       *       *       *       *       *

But our limit is at length reached. We have watched the primitive
ship evolve from the tree; we have seen how she has been changed and
revived, degenerated and improved, made larger or smaller, tubbier or
more graceful according as it has pleased the hand of man. Now that
we have shown, however imperfectly, with however many omissions,
her noble and illustrious pedigree, her ancestry reaching back
through the centuries into the first blush of the dawn of the world’s
creation, perhaps we shall regard her with an interest, a respect
and affection at once greater and deeper because we have become
better acquainted with the reasons that have caused each of these
developments.


THE END.




GLOSSARY.


BRACES. Ropes rove through blocks by which to control the yards of a
square-rigged ship.

BRAILS. Ropes used for the purpose of shortening a ship’s canvas,
as in the case of the Phœnician and Roman ships, and to-day in the
Thames barge.

CAREEN. To lay a ship over on to her side in order to be able to
caulk her lower seams.

CARVEL-BUILD. The manner of building a vessel so that the planks are
laid edge to edge, and not overlapping.

CAULK. To stop the seams of a ship with oakum, so as to prevent the
water entering between the planking.

CLEW. The lower corners of a squaresail, and the aftermost corner of
a staysail.

CLINKER-BUILD. The manner of building a vessel so that the planks
overlap each other. (Compare “carvel-build.”)

CRANK. An adjective applied to a ship when she is liable to capsize.

DAVITS. Short pieces, formerly of timber, now of iron, projecting
over a vessel’s side, for hoisting up the ship’s anchors or boats.

DHOW. The term applied generally to the lateen-rigged ships of the
East.

FREEBOARD. The amount of a ship’s hull extending from the waterline
to the gunwale.

GAFF. A spar used for extending the upper edge of a fore-and-aft
rectangular sail—_e.g._, the mainsail of a cutter.

GOARING. An old English expression in use during Elizabethan times,
applied when the lower corners of the sail extended much further out
than the width of the canvas stretched along the yard.

GOOSENECK. A piece of bent iron fitted to the end of a boom by which
to connect the latter to the ship.

GUY. A rope attached to a spar for the purpose of steadying it.

GYBE. When a ship so alters her course in running free that the wind,
instead of coming from one quarter, comes from the opposite quarter,
the mainsail of a fore-and-after will have swung over, and be said to
have gybed.

HALYARD. A rope or tackle used for hoisting or lowering sails and
spars.

JETTISON. To lighten a ship by throwing goods overboard.

JIB-BOOM. The spar which continues further forward the projection of
the bowsprit.

KEELSON. The piece of timber which is laid on the middle of the floor
timbers over the keel.

LANYARD. A short piece of rope used for various purposes—_e.g._, for
making fast the shrouds to a ship’s side.

LATEEN. A long triangular sail bent to a long yard, a characteristic
sail of the Mediterranean and dhow-rigged craft. Also carried on the
mizzen and bonaventure mizzen of mediæval full-rigged ships.

LEACH. The vertical edges of a sail.

LUG. A fore-and-aft sail hoisted on a yard, of which not more
than about a third of its length is forward of the mast. In the
dupping-lug the tack of the sail is made fast some distance forward
of the mast, and because the sail must needs be set on the lee side
of the mast it has to be dipped at each tack and hoisted afresh on
the other side.

MIZZEN. The aftermost mast of a vessel having two or more masts;
sometimes called a jigger. In the case of mediæval ships having four
masts, the aftermost was called the bonaventure mizzen, and the one
immediately forward of this the main mizzen.

PARRAL. A band for keeping the end of a yard to the mast; made in
different ages of basket-work or rope—in the latter case running
through a number of circular pieces of wood, to prevent friction in
raising and lowering the yard or gaff.

PAVISSES. Shields of wood or other material placed round a ship’s
side for a protection against the enemy’s missiles; used also in open
boats for keeping out the spray.

PINTLE. The bolt by which a rudder is attached to the stern of a ship.

QUANT. A pole used extensively in Holland and East Anglia for the
purpose of propelling a craft along shallow waterways. (Greek κοντὸς,
Latin _contus_, a pole.)

RACE. A rapid current of disturbed water caused by the unevenness of
the bottom of the sea, frequently found off headlands—_e.g._, St.
Alban’s Head, Portland Bill, &c.

ROCKER. The curvature of a piece or pieces of wood in a vessel’s
structure.

SCUTTLE. To cause a ship to sink by making holes in her hull below
the water-line.

SHEER. The curve of a vessel’s hull from bow to stern, or _vice
versâ_.

SPINNAKER. A light, triangular-shaped sail set on the side opposite
to that on which the mainsail extends, and used when running before
the wind.

SPRIT, SPRITSAIL. (1) In full-rigged ships the _spritsail_ was a
square-sail set on a yard below the bowsprit; now obsolete. (2) In
fore-and-aft vessels the _sprit_ is a spar used for stretching the
peak of the sail, thus extending diagonally across the mast—as, for
instance, in the case of a Thames barge (see Fig. 99).

STAYSAIL. Usually triangular in shape, though in the seventeenth
century sometimes rectangular, hoisted on a stay, between the masts
or forward of the foremast.

STEEVING. The angle which a ship’s bowsprit makes with the horizon.

STEMPOST. The piece of timber to which the two sides of a ship’s
planking are united at the forward end.

STEP. The block of wood into which the keel of a mast is fixed.

STRUT-FRAME. A piece of timber used in shipbuilding for strengthening
the vessel.

TOPPING-LIFTS. Ropes used for the support of the boom of a sail when
the latter is stowed.

TRUCK. A small wooden cap at the summit of a mast.

VANG. A rope leading down from the end of a gaff to the deck. A
characteristic of the Dutch sloops and Thames barge rig.

WALE. One of the planks of a ship.




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  OPPENHEIM. A History of the Administration of the Royal Navy;
  1509-1660. 1896.

  —— (edited by). Naval Accounts and Inventories of the reign of
  Henry VII. 1896.

  —— (edited by). Naval Tracts of Sir William Monson. 6 vols. 1902.

  PARIS, Admiral EDMOND. L’Art Naval à L’Exposition Universelle de
  Londres de 1862. 1863.

  —— Souvenirs de Marine. 4 vols. 1882-6.

  —— Le Musée de Marine du Louvre des Navires à Rames et à voiles.
  1883.

  PEPYS’ Diary.

  PERROT, GEORGES, and ROBERT DE LA STEYRIE. Un Manuscrit de la
  Bibliothèque de Philippe le Bon à Saint-Pétersbourg (article in
  Monuments et Mémoires). 1904.

  PETRIE, W. M. F. Gizeh and Rifeh. 1907.

  PRITCHETT, R. T. Shipping and Craft. 1899.

  RALEIGH, Sir WALTER. Judicious and Select Essays. 1650.

  ROBINSON, Commander C. N., R.N. The British Fleet. 1894.

  The Rudder.

  RUNCIMAN, W. Windjammers and Sea Tramps. 1902.

  RUSSELL, W. CLARK. The Ship: her Story. 1899.

  SMITH, Captain JOHN. Seaman’s Grammar. 1653.

  —— An Accidence, or the pathway to experience necessary for all
  young seamen. 1626.

  SMYTH, H. WARINGTON. Mast and Sail in Europe and Asia. 1906.

  SPOONER, Rev. W. A., M.A. The Histories of Tacitus. 1891.

  SPONT, ALFRED. Letters and Papers Relating to the War with France
  1512-1513. 1897.

  STEPHENS, GEORGE. Old Northern Runic Monuments of Scandinavia and
  England. 4 vols. 1866-1901.

  STOCK, St. GEORGE, (edited by). Cæsar de Bello Gallico. 1898.

  SULLIVAN, Sir EDWARD, Bart. Lord Brassey and others’ Yachting. 2
  vols. 1894-5.

  TANNER, J. R., M.A. A Descriptive Catalogue of the Naval MSS. in
  the Pepysian Library at Magdalene College Cambridge. 2 vols. 1903.

  —— Two Discourses of the Navy: 1638 and 1659 by John Hollond. 1896.

  TODD, J., and WHALL, W. B. Practical Seamanship for Use in the
  Mercantile Service. 1898.

  TORR, CECIL. Ancient Ships. 1894.

  TRAILL, H. D., D.C.L., and J. S. MANN, M.A. Social England. 1901.
  Also articles in same by W. Laird Clowes.

  THE VICTORIA COUNTY HISTORIES.

  WEALE, W. H. JAMES. Hans Memling. 1901.

  WRIGHT, W. H. K. Catalogue of the Exhibition of Armada and
  Elizabethan Relics. 1888.

  The Yachtsman.

  The Yachting Monthly.

  The Yachting World.

  YOUNG, FILSON. Christopher Columbus and the New World of His
  Discovery containing a Note on the Navigation of Columbus’s First
  Voyage, by the Earl of Dunraven. 2 vols. 1906.




INDEX


  Aberdeen, 267

  Adams, Clement, 192

  Adams, M. Robert, 216

  Admirals, rank of, 248

  Admiralty and sheathing, 245;
    Admiralty flag, 199

  Adriatic Sea, naval battle on the, 216

  Africans, East, and the art of navigation, 51

  Ailsa, Marquis of, 327

  Alderney Race, 251

  Alexander the Great, 44

  Alfred’s, King, ships, 131

  Algiers, bombardment of, 235;
    piracy, 233

  Althiburus mosaic, 84

  Amasis, 48

  America, Columbus and, 183;
    the Vikings and, 92;
    the Phœnicians and, 50

  America Cup, 293, 325

  America, North, discovery of, 258;
    timber, 268

  American Civil War, 266, 269;
    frigates, 256

  American shipbuilding, 266;
    the Dutch and, 293

  American War of 1812, 256;
    wasters, 296;
    yachting, 330;
    yachts, 325

  Amsterdam, Rijks Museum, 241

  Anchorena, Señor A. de, 332

  Anchors, 72, 147, 154, 156

  Anglo-Saxon ships, 131-133

  Anne, Queen, navy of, 249

  Anson, Lord, 258

  Anthony’s, Anthony, “Roll,” 186

  Aphlaston, the, 54, 58

  Arctic expedition, Dutch, 231;
    exploration, 218

  Armada, Spanish, 194, 197, 198, 202, 203, 206;
    tapestries of, 207;
    number of ships and their construction, 211-214

  Artemon, or foresail, 79

  Arun, River, ancient boat found near, 100

  Atlantic emigrant traffic, 272;
    steamers, 266;
    yacht race across the, 330

  Australia, 246, 268, 272

  Australian aborigines and stone implements, 99


  Babylonia, 20

  Bakhuizen, Ludolf, 5

  Ballast, 196, 324

  Baltic, Phœnicians on the, 112;
    ketches, 303;
    ships, 10

  Banners, 153. _See also_ Flags

  Barber, Commander T. M., 37

  Barcelona ships, 170

  Barton Broad, 307

  Baston, T. (engraver), 250

  Bayeux Tapestry, the, 17, 134

  Beaching, 60

  Bedford, John, Duke of, 166

  “Before the Mast,” 154

  Bentall, Mr. E. H., 328

  Bergen law for sailors, 127

  Bernoulli, Jean, 243

  Bibliography, 335 _et seq._

  Bilge water, 249

  Bill-hooks, 187, 199

  Billingsgate, 235, 285, 303

  Binnacles, 179

  Black Ball liners, 270

  Blackwall, 246, 267

  Blake, Admiral, 230, 232, 233

  Blankenberg boat, 312

  Boar’s head, 60

  Bodleian Library MS., 203

  Bombay yacht, 309

  Bonaventure mast, 175

  Bonhomme, —, 209

  Bonnets, 153, 178, 195, 275

  Booms, 123

  Boreas, 129

  Boston, 255

  Botley, Viking ship discovered at, 115

  Bounty system for shipbuilding, 179

  Bowlines, 179, 198, 210

  Bows, 86;
    clipper, 266, 324;
    Greek, 61;
    overhanging, 329;
    Phœnician, 55;
    round, 257;
    schooner, 276;
    Viking double, 94

  Bowsprit, 275

  Brails, 65, 82, 262, 285

  Brassey, Lord, 50, 327

  Bremen, ancient boats discovered at, 102

  Breydon Water, 307

  Brigg prehistoric boat, 95

  Brighton, 129, 136, 322

  Bristol as port, 138

  Britanni, the, 104

  British Empire shipping tonnage in 1821, 258

  British Museum, models in, 27;
    and Brigg prehistoric boat, 96

  British Navy, size of, in 1813, 256 (_see also under the names of
        monarchs_);
    last sailing ship in the, 300

  Brixham ketch, 303;
    Mumble Bees, 291

  Broad arrow as Government mark, 234

  Bronze and Iron Age ships, 104

  Brooking, Charles, 5, 323

  Brosen Viking ship, 117

  Bruges, 163

  Budge, Dr. E. A. Wallis, 22, 28

  Bulkheads, 196

  Bullen, Mr. F. T., on the way of the ship, 12;
    on the ships of St. Paul’s voyage, 15;
    on Elizabethan sea-terms, 210;
    on spritsails, 265;
    on clipper ships, 271

  Bulwarks, 178

  Burgess, W., 295

  Burmese junks, 7, 31

  “Butter-rigged,” 298

  Byrne, Mr. St. Clare, 327

  Bytharne’s “Book of War,” 188


  Cabins, 148

  Cables, 276

  Cabot, John, 184

  Cæsar, ships used by, 87, 93, 103, 106, 107;
    and the Northern seas, 107

  Calais, siege of, 159

  California, 268

  Caligula, ships of, 76

  Cambyses, 48

  Camper and Nicholson, Messrs., 326, 332

  Canary Isles, discovery of, 158

  Cannon, introduction of, 158, 168

  Canterbury Cathedral, picture of a ship formerly in, 185

  Cape Horn, 268, 273, 274, 277

  Cape La Hogue, 240

  Cape Verde Islands, 292

  Cappelle, Jan van der, 5, 284

  Captain, the, _temp._ James I., 225

  “Caravel,” derivation of, 182

  Careening, 226

  Carpaccio’s pictures of ships, 130, 162

  Carrying trade, _temp._ Queen Elizabeth, 193

  Carter, Captain, 329

  Carvel-work, 323

  Cary-Elwes, Mr. V., ancient boat belonging to, 96

  Castles on ships, 68, 140, 156, 169;
    on Armada ships, 211;
    absorbed into the hull, 164;
    fore and stern, 171

  Catteville, 138

  Caulking, 178

  “Ceols,” 134

  Chancellor, Richard, 191

  Chapman, F. H. af, 243

  Charles I. and his navy, 228

  Charles II. and his navy, 234-246;
    gift of Dutch yacht for, 289, 321;
    introduces yacht-racing, 321

  Chatham, 200, 229, 236, 237, 241

  China tea trade, 268

  Chinese junks, 31, 310

  Christiania, 291

  Cinque Ports, the, 129, 148, 152, 154

  Civil War, the, 232

  Claude Lorraine’s “St. Ursula,” 5

  Clipper races in China tea trade, 269

  Clitherowe, Admiral, seal of, 166

  Clowes, Sir W. Laird, 177

  Clyde, the, ancient boat found, 100;
    five-master built on, 273

  Coal-carrying trade, 300

  Coasting trade, _temp._ Queen Elizabeth, 193

  “Cocke,” or _coque_, 200

  Coins, ships on, 128, 157

  Colbert, Jean B., 249

  Cole, Mr. Vicat, 5

  Columbus’s Christopher, ship, 176, 180, 183;
    model, 182;
    replica, 180;
    navigation instruments, 184

  Commonwealth, the, and war with the Dutch, 232;
    construction of ships, 234;
    decoration of ships, 233;
    and the flying of flags, 241

  Compass, variation of the, 193

  Concas, Captain D. V., 180

  Connolly, Mr. J. B., 294

  Cook, Captain, 258

  Cooke, E. W., R.A., 261

  Cooking galley, Elizabethan, 196

  Copper sheathing, 251

  Coracle, the, 103

  Cork, 322

  Corks, 178

  Cornwall, men of, 202

  Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, MS., 146, 154

  Cotton ships, 266

  Cowes, 322, 327, 331

  “Crane line,” 178

  Crawford, Earl of, 330

  Cressets, 181, 190

  Crimean War, 268, 323

  Cromwell and the Navy, 233

  Crowinshield, —, 295

  Crusades, ships of the, 17, 138, 139, 141, 146, 153, 172

  Cuyp, A., 5

  Cypress, 246


  Dam, or Damme, seal of, 154, 276, 304

  Dampier, William, 246, 258

  Danes, the, and British love of ships, 109

  Dartmouth, 202, 215, 216

  Dassie, Le Sieur, 243

  David II. of Scotland, coin of, 157

  Davits, 177

  Dead-eyes, 178

  Deal “galley,” 131;
    luggers, 318

  Deane, Sir Anthony, 236, 241, 245, 321

  Deane, Anthony, the younger, 246

  Decks, 148, 171, 196, 205, 246

  Decoration of royal yachts, 322

  Decoration of ships, _temp._ Henry VIII., 188, 191;
    _temp._ Elizabeth, 194;
    during the Commonwealth, 233

  Deptford, 322

  Devon, men of, 202, 291

  Devonport, 257

  Dhow, the, 44

  Digby, Captain, 239

  Dilke, Lady E. F. S., 5

  Dixon, Mr. Charles, 5, 241, 255

  Doldrums, the, 332

  Dover, seal of, 152

  Drake’s, Sir Francis, voyage round the world, 202

  Draught, Elizabethan, 194

  “Drift sail,” 225

  Dublin, 138

  Duemichen, Dr., 40

  Dug-outs, ancient, discoveries of, 100

  Dumbarton, 274

  Dumfries, ancient boat found near, 100

  Dungeness, 319

  Dunraven, Earl of, 183

  Dutch develop fore-and-aft rig, 282, 283

  Dutch East India Company, 322

  Dutch East Indiamen, sterns of, 243

  Dutch exploration of N.-E. Passage, 219

  Dutch man-of-war, seventeenth century, model of, 243

  Dutch naval rivalry, seventeenth century, 231

  Dutch navy in 1675, 236

  Dutch schuyts, 303

  Dutch ships and English men-of-war, 232

  Dutch, war with the, 1667, 237;
    invasion of England, 237, 241


  East Coast ketch, 303, 304

  East India Company, founding of, 221;
    under James I., 226;
    monopoly, 258

  East India Company, Dutch, 322

  East Indiamen, 258

  Eddystone Lighthouse, 246

  Edgar, King, navy of, 132;
    as a yachtsman, 320

  Edinburgh Museum, ancient boat in, 101

  Edward I., ships of the time of, 154

  Edward III., navy of, 157;
    fleet at the siege of Calais, 158

  Edward IV., ships of, 174;
    shipping in the reign of, 161

  Edward VI., ships of, 191

  Edward VII., ships of, 264;
    yacht _Britannia_, 329

  Egyptians, ancient, history of ships, 20-45;
    dynasties, 28;
    expedition to Punt, 39;
    exploration, 26;
    rig of ships, 11, 29, 38;
    shape of ships, 9;
    model rigged boat discovered, 3

  Elizabeth, Queen, maritime affairs under, 193-221

  Elm sheathing, 245

  England as the “Sovereign of the Seas,” _temp._ John, 148;
    _temp._ Elizabeth, 201

  English fleet, the, opposed to the Armada, 211

  English Navy, the, in 1675, 236

  English sailing ships, Viking influence on, 127

  English skill, 18

  Ensigns. _See_ Flags

  Etruscan vase showing naval warfare, 64

  Europe, Northern, early ships of, 89-127

  Exeter, Thomas Beaufort, Duke of, seal of, 166

  Eyes on ships, 11, 65


  Fabriano, Gentile da, 161

  Fife, Mr. William, 326, 327, 333

  Fife & Son, of Fairlie, 333

  Fighting-tops, 16, 65, 181

  Figureheads, 12, 194, 228

  Fireships, 236

  FitzGerald, Henry, 146

  Flags, banners, ensigns, streamers, &c., 176, 188, 199, 241, 248, 254

  Flagships, 157

  Florence, Duke of, 246

  Forecastle, Greek, 65

  Forecastles reduced, 194. _See also_ Castles

  France and England, Norman trade between, 137

  French models in English naval architecture, 259

  French navy in 1675, 236

  French ships, fifteenth century, 164;
    seventeenth century, 244;
    warships, sixteenth century, 184;
    eighteenth century, 249

  French, ships taken from the, 257

  Friesland oarsmen, 131

  Froude, Mr. William, 328

  Furneaux, Mr. Henry, on “pontibus,” 108


  “Galleys” and “ships,” 138

  Gallic ship, 88

  Gama, Vasco da, 51, 184

  Gauckler, M. P., 84

  Geestemünde, 275

  Genoa, ships of, 170

  George III. and yachting, 322

  German Emperor’s Cup, 330

  German Ocean, 282

  German, St., 137

  German yacht designers, 331

  Germanic craft, 102

  Germanicus, ships built by, 108

  Germans as sailing-men, 274

  Giorgione, 130

  Glasgow, ancient canoes found near, 101;
    ship built at, 274

  Glass, stained, pictures of ships, 130

  Gloppen Viking ship, 117

  Gloucester, Massachusetts, 293

  Gloucester, Richard Plantagenet, Duke of, seal of, 166

  Gnomon, 71

  Godredus Crovan, 138

  Gogstad Viking ship, 117-121;
    replica of, crosses Atlantic, 119

  Gold rushes and shipping, 268

  Gondola, the, 16

  Goodwins, the, 319

  Gosport, 326

  Grapnel, the, 154

  Gravesend, 321

  Greece, ancient ships of, 55-72;
    Phœnician influence, 47, 55;
    materials of ships, 62;
    galleys, 9;
    naval warfare, 64;
    navigation, 71

  Green, Mr. Richard, 267

  Green, Messrs., of Blackwall, 267, 271, 272

  Greenock, 267, 326

  Greenwich Naval Museum, models in, 5, 255, 256, 257, 260

  Greenwich Royal Observatory founded, 235

  Greenwich, yacht race in 1661, 321

  Guns and gunpowder, 158

  Guns, placing of, 168, 173, 253

  “Gunwale,” origin of, 168

  Gustafson, Professor Gabriel, and the Gogstad Viking ship, 118;
    Oseberg Viking ship, 121

  Guy, Captain, 239


  Hakluyt, Richard, 3, 49, 132, 138, 140, 141, 147, 148, 149, 152, 191,
        192, 202, 211

  Hakluyt Society’s stamp, 236

  Hall, Mr. H. R., 22

  Hamble (or Hamill), 174, 179

  Hamburg, 274

  Hanseatic League, 159;
    wane of, 191;
    English ships purchased from, 190

  Harold, ships of, 134

  Harrow, seal at, 167

  Harwich, 290

  Hastings, seal of, 152

  Havre, 266

  Hawkins, Sir John, 193, 245

  Hawse, 178

  Hemp, Russian, &c., 234

  Hemy, Napier, 5

  Henry I. and maritime industry, 138

  Henry II., progress of shipping under, 138;
    crusade of, 153

  Henry III., ships under, 148;
    and Norwegian merchants, 145

  Henry IV., ships under, 159

  Henry V., ships of, 160;
    and Genoese ships, 172;
    increase of navy, 173

  Henry VI., shipbuilding in reign of, 161

  Henry VII., ships of, 173

  Henry VIII., ships of, 185-191, 204

  Heyward, Edward, 241, 242

  Hiring ships, 177

  Holbein’s “Embarkation of Henry VIII.,” 185

  Holland. _See_ Dutch

  Holland, English merchants of, seal of, 167

  Holyhead, 321

  House of Lords tapestries, 207, 208

  “Hovelling,” 319

  Howard of Effingham, Lord, 200, 201, 207

  Howard, Sir Philip, 78, 245

  Hoyle, Dr., Manchester Museum, 4

  Hubert of Borough, 148

  Hudson River, 295

  Huguenots, the, 209

  Hull, 159

  Huntingdon, John Holland, Earl of, seal of, 166


  India, 272. _See also_ East India Company

  Ipswich, manufacture of sail-cloth at, 209

  Iron in shipbuilding, 259, 268

  Ironworks, _temp._ Charles I., 234


  James I., ships of, 222-228;
    and English piracy, 222

  Jesup Expedition, the, 32, 104

  Jochelson, Mr., and Koryak boat, 104

  John, King, and the Navy, 148


  Keels, 134;
    sliding, 255

  Kempenfelt, Admiral, 250

  Kent, men of, 133

  Khorsabad, Palace of, 51

  Kiel Museum, boat in, 95

  King’s Cup, 331

  Kinyras, King of Cyprus, and terra-cotta “fleet,” 69

  Kipling, Mr. Rudyard, 12, 294

  Knights of Malta, 216

  Koryak boats, 32, 104


  La Rochelle, seal of, 167

  Labour-saving on American schooners, 297

  Lancaster, Sir James, and scurvy, 197

  Langton, Archbishop, 148

  Lapthorn & Ratsey, 326

  Latchetes, 178

  Lateen sail, 14, 175, 282, 309

  Lateran Museum, 43

  Layard, Sir Austin, 51

  Lead ballast, 324

  Lead-covered keels, 192

  Lead-line, the, 79

  Lead sheathing, 245, 276

  Lepanto, battle of, 221

  Leslie, Mr. Robert C., 265

  Lifeboat, the, 255

  Lipton, Sir Thomas, 333

  Liverpool, 273

  Loch Arthur, Dumfries, ancient boat in, 100

  London as port, 138

  London Bridge, Dutch schuyts at, 303

  Longships, 61

  Louis XIV. and the French navy, 236, 249

  Louvre, the, 6

  Lowestoft, 304, 307, 315

  Lowestoft “drifters,” 13

  Lug-sail, 312

  Lynn, Norfolk, 156, 158


  McCunn, Mr. James, 271

  Macham’s voyage to Madeira, 158

  Mackie & Thomson, Messrs., 274

  McMillan, A., & Son, Messrs., 274

  Madeira, Island of, 158

  Magnet, the, 154

  Mainsail, 285

  Maldon, 328

  Malta, Knights of, 216

  Maltese galley, 216

  Man, Isle of, 138

  Manchester Museum, Egyptian boat in, 3, 33

  Manuscripts, pictures of ships on, 129

  Manwayring, Sir Henry, 198, 203, 205, 224, 303

  Maritime laws under Richard I., 147

  Mark, St., mosaic of, 144

  Marlin spikes, 179

  Marquez, Pero Menendez, 214

  Marseilles, 113

  Mary, Queen, fishing, &c., traffic in reign of, 193

  Mason, Mr. Frank H., models by, 152, 181

  Maspero, Professor, 41

  Mass, dry, 190

  Masts, 172, 242, 243, 274

  Mediterranean craft, 56, 139;
    galley, 16;
    galley and North Sea ship, 91;
    warship of thirteenth century, 142

  Memling, pictures by, 4, 130, 163

  Mercantile marine, progress of the, 257

  Mercator’s chart, 193

  Merchant ships, Egyptian, 85;
    Greek, 61, 85;
    Roman, 81;
    Anglo-Saxon, 133;
    Elizabethan, 201;
    Mediterranean, 172

  Merchantman and man-of-war, similarity of, in Stuart times, 227

  Metallic age, the, and shipbuilding, 105

  Middleton, Commissioner, 239

  Milesian sea-traders, 48, 55

  Mizzen mast, 172

  Monson, Sir William, 197

  Moore, Henry, 5

  Moresby, Admiral, 263, 264

  Motors as aids to sailing ships, 2, 277

  Museums, models of ships in, 5


  Nails, bronze, 276

  Napoleon III’s trireme, 70

  National Gallery pictures, 259, 284, 285, 323

  “Nautical Almanac,” founded, 235

  Naval architecture, scientific study of, 243;
    progress in seventeenth century, 246;
    in nineteenth century, 257

  Naval expeditions of the crusades, 146

  Naval officers and navigation, 264

  Naval warfare, Greek, 64

  Navigating methods of the Vikings, 126

  Navigation, ancient Greek, 71

  Navigation laws, Queen Elizabeth, 193

  Naville, Dr. Edouard, 41

  Navy Board and sheathing, 245;
    rating, 249

  Neco (Egyptian king), 49

  Nelson, Lord, 251;
    his signal, 251;
    painting of his ships, 255

  Nemi, Lake of, Roman ships in, 76

  Nettings, 209

  New York, 266, 267, 293, 296

  New York Yacht Club, 325

  New Zealand, 272

  Newcastle hoys, 235

  Newcastle-on-Tyne, 159, 258

  Newfoundland fisheries, 202, 258, 294

  Nicholas de Sigillo, 146

  Nicholas of Lynn, 158

  Nicholas, St., patron saint of sailors, 3, 129, 136, 161

  Nicholson, Mr. C. E., 332

  “Nor,” the prefix, 112

  Norfolk wherries, 13, 34, 112;
    yawls, 315

  Norman ships, 134-138

  Norris, Admiral Sir John, 186

  Norsemen, the, 109-127, 131. _See also_ Vikings

  North Pole, Dutch voyage to, 283

  North-East Passage, search for, 191, 219

  North-West Passage, 291

  Norwegian merchants, 145

  Norwegian yawl, 13

  Norwich, 307

  Nottingham, Earl of. _See_ Howard of Effingham

  “Nugger,” Egyptian, 43

  Nydam, Viking ship discovered at, 115


  Oak, English, scarcity of, 268

  Octher, voyage of, 132

  Oleron, laws of, 147

  Oppenheim, Mr., 175, 176, 178, 179, 233

  Orwell, the, 302

  Oseberg Viking ship, 121

  Outriggers, 179


  Paddle _v._ screw test, 263

  Paddle-wheel steamers, 263

  “Painters,” 178

  Painting ships, 176;
    of men-of-war, 255

  Pallion, 271

  Panama Canal, 277

  Paris, Admiral, 310

  Paris, seal of, 141

  Paul, St., voyages of, 15, 79, 314

  Pavisses, 179, 209

  Penn, Sir William, 238

  Penzance luggers, 318

  Pepys, Samuel, 18, 187, 237-240;
    “Register,” 246

  Personality of ships, 12

  Petrie, Professor Flinders, discovers model Egyptian boat, 3, 27, 33

  Pett, Christopher, 321

  Pett, Phineas, and family, 227, 229, 236, 246

  Pharos, tower of, 71

  Phœnician ships, 46-55

  Phœnicians, the, influence of the Egyptians, 47;
    as traders, 47;
    as sailors, 48;
    as explorers, 49;
    and the North Sea ships, 92;
    on the Baltic, 112

  Pictures of ships, 5

  Pilots, laws for, _temp._ Richard I., 147

  Pin Mill, 302

  Pine’s, John, engravings of House of Lords tapestries, 207

  Pipe Rolls, 146

  Piracy, _temp._ ancient Greece, 68, 85;
    North Sea, _temp._ Henry IV., 159;
    English, _temp._ Elizabeth, 222;
    Algerian, 233

  “Plimsoll” marks, early, 215

  Pliny, the elder, 102

  Plymouth hooker, 291

  Pompei, tomb at, 60

  Poole, 326;
    seal of, 156

  Poop, the, 16, 181

  Portholes, 173

  Portsmouth, 138, 209, 241, 245, 321

  Portsmouth Dockyard, founded, 179

  Portugal, maritime progress in sixteenth century, 180

  Portuguese fishing boats, eyes on, 65

  Potter, Messrs. W. H. & Co., 273

  Prussia, 159

  Pytheas’s _gnomon_, 71


  “Quant,” 67


  Raleigh, Sir Walter, 194, 197

  Rams, Greek, 58, 63;
    galleons, 213

  Ramsgate, 303, 304

  Rating rules, yachts, 332

  Ratings, 237, 249

  Red ensign, 254

  Reefing gear, 276. _See also_ Brails

  Reefing in Elizabethan times, 195

  Revenue cutters, 323

  Richard I. in the Mediterranean, 17;
    his navy, 138, 141, 146, 147

  Richard II., reign of, 159

  Richard III., shipping in reign of, 161

  Rifeh, Egypt, early boat found at, 3, 27, 33

  Rigging, ancient Egyptian, 11, 29, 38;
    ancient Greek, 59;
    _Ark Royal_, 198;
    brigs, 300;
    caravel of sixteenth century, 181;
    Columbus’s ship, 182;
    corvettes, 252;
    development and progress, 81, 275-277;
    East Indiamen, 264-265;
    eighteenth century, 247-248;
    Elizabethan, 210;
    fore-and-aft, 220, 244, 281-334;
    four-masted barques, 273, 274;
    _Henri Grâce à Dieu_, 186;
    lateen, 14;
    Mediterranean warship, 143;
    Phœnician, 48;
    Roman, 74;
    _Royal Charles_, 241;
    ship of British Navy of 1815 (details), 278-279;
    ship painted by Gentile da Fabriano, 161;
    sloop, 220;
    Spanish galleon, 213;
    Spanish treasure-frigate, 214;
    squaresail, 11;
    three-decker, 230;
    Victorian, early, 260-262, (model) 1;
    warship of Henry VII., 174. _See also_ Ships (types)

  Rock carvings, Scandinavian, 110

  Roman galleys, 9;
    ships, 73-88, 106

  Ropes, ancient Greek, 67

  Roses, the Wars of the, 161, 173, 180

  Rother, the, Kent, ancient boat found, 100

  Rouen, 166

  Roundships, 61

  Royal ships hired to merchants, 177

  Royal United Service Museum, models, &c., in, 5, 181, 216, 235, 243,
        250

  Royal Victoria Yacht Club, 325

  Royal Yacht Squadron, 324

  Royals, 230

  Rudder-bands, 80

  Rudders, 144, 150, 156

  Ruisdael (artist), 5

  Rutherglen, seal of, 167

  Rye, seal of, 167


  Sagas, the, 89

  Sail-making, 326

  Sailcloth manufacture, 209

  Sailing power, revival of, 277

  Sailors under King John, 148;
    _temp._ Queen Elizabeth, 197;
    _temp._ James I., 225;
    present-day “sailors,” 2

  Sails, of the _Ark Royal_, 200;
    colours of, 67;
    cutting, 201;
    decorated, 83, 209;
    development of, 276, 284;
    scientific treatment of, 243;
    Viking sails, 122, 123, 124

  St. Andrew’s flag, 241

  St. George’s flag, 241, 242

  San Francisco, 267, 291

  San Sebastian, Spain, seal of, 156

  Sandefjord, 272

  Sandwich, seal of, 141, 149

  Saracen ship and Crusaders, 140

  Saxons, vessels of the, 109

  Scandinavian coin, ship on, 133

  Scandinavian rigs, 12

  Scandinavians. _See_ Norsemen

  Scarborough Bay, 317

  Schank, Admiral, 255

  Schooner, origin of the name, 293

  Scotch fishing boat, Norwegian influence on, 317

  Scott, Messrs., 267, 268

  Screw propeller, 257

  Screw steamer, advent of, 263

  Sea, the call of the, 19

  Sea-terms in Elizabethan English, 210

  Seals, mediæval, ships on, 128

  Seamanship, early European, 137;
    “marlin-spike seamanship,” 275

  Sennacherib, palace of, 51

  Seppings, Sir Robert, 257, 259

  Shakespeare, sea-terms used by, 210

  Sheathing, 245, 250, 251, 276

  Sheer, 277

  Sheerness, 237, 245, 277

  Shetland Isles boats, 13

  Shields, 179

  Shields, North and South, 258

  Shipbuilding, origins of, 90, 94;
    Norse, 125;
    Norman, 135;
    _temp._ Queen Elizabeth, 193;
    progress of, 218;
    in England in 1841-47, 266

  Shipbuilding terms, ancient, still extant, 103

  Ships, cost of building, seventeenth century, 246

  Ships, history:
    Sources for history, 3-4
    Reconstruction and development, 6-8
    Primitive man, 23
    Early Egyptian, 20-45
    Phœnician, 46-55
    Greek, 55-72
    Roman, 73-88, 106
    Northern Europe, 89-127
    Mediæval, eighth century to 1485, 128-169
    Anglo-Saxon, 131-133
    Norman, 134-138
    Henry VII. to Elizabeth (1485-1603), 170-222
    Spain and Portugal, 180
    James I. to eighteenth century, 222-253
    Nineteenth and twentieth centuries, 254-280

  Ships, named:
    _Alarm_, 251, 324, 325
    _Alecto_, 263
    _Alexandria_, 323
    _Aline_, 326
    _Alnwick Castle_, 271
    _America_, 293, 324, 325
    _Ann Gallant_, 190
    _Anne_, 321
    _Ariel_, 270
    _Ark Royal_, _Ark Raleigh_, or _Anne Royal_, 194, 197-201, 226, 228
    _Arrow_, 323, 324, 325
    _Ascension_, 221
    _Atlantic_, 327
    _Bear_, 228
    _Bellerophon_, 176
    _Bezan_, 321
    _Black Adder_, 270
    _Bloodhound_, 327
    _Bona Confidentia_, 192
    _Bona Esperanza_, 192
    _Bonaventure_, 245
    _Britannia_, 329, 330
    _Buss of Zeland_, 160
    _Busship_, 160
    _Caledonia_, 255
    _Challenge_, 267, 269
    _Challenger_, 267
    _Charles_, 246
    _Christopher Spayne_, 160
    _Chrysolite_, 269
    _Cogge_, 159
    _Columbia_, 331
    _Columbia II._, 50
    _Commerce de Marseilles_, 252, 255
    _Constant Warwick_, 232
    _Constitution_, 331
    _Cordelière_, 173, 179, 184, 188
    _Cutty Sark_, 270
    _Cymba_, 326
    _Cynthia_, 256
    _Defender_, 331
    _Desdemona_, 272
    _Dogger_, 160
    _Doggership_, 160
    _Dreadnought_, 16, 176;
      (Charles II.), 245
    _Dunkerque_, 273
    _Edward Bonaventure_, 192
    _Egeria_, 326
    _Elizabeth_, 331, 332
    _Fantôme_, 299
    _Fiery Cross_, 270
    _Florencia_, 212
    _Flying Cloud_, 266, 270
    _Fortuna_, 272
    _France_, 273
    _Fredonia_, 295
    _Friday_, 159
    _Gainsborough_, 233
    _Germania_, 331
    _Gjöa_, 291
    _Godezere_, 159
    _Golden Lion_, 240
    _Governor_, 174
    _Grâce à Dieu_, 174, 177, 178, 179
    _Grand Louise_, 184
    _Great Republic_, 267
    _Harry Grâce à Dieu_, 177
    _Hawkin Derlin of Dantzik_, 159
    _Hector_, 221
    _Helena_, 160
    _Henri Grâce à Dieu_, 185, 186, 196
    _Henrietta_, 245
    _Holigost_, 160
    _Hotspur_, 271
    _Isabel_, 160
    _Isle of Wight_, 321
    _James_, 246
    _James of London_, 185
    _Jemmy_, 321
    _Jesus_, 160
    _Jesus of Lubeck_, 187, 197
    _Jullanar_, 305, 328
    _Katherine_, 321
    _Katherine Pomegranate_, 185
    _Kestrel_, 323
    _Keying_, 311, 312
    _La Blanche Nef_, 138
    _La Félipe_, 156
    _Las Cinque Llagas_, 216
    _Leicester_, 204, 211
    _L’Esperance_, 327
    _Liverpool_, 273
    _Lord of the Isles_, 268
    _Louisa_, 324
    _Lulworth_, 324
    _Macquarie_, 272
    _Madre de Dios_, 215
    _Mahratta_, 319
    _Margaret_, 159
    _Marie Rose_, 195
    _Martin_, 299
    _Martin Garsia_, 174
    _Mary_, 289, 321
    _Mary Fortune_, 177
    _Mary of the Tower_, 174
    _Mary Rose_, 185
    _Mauretania_, 75, 189, 274
    _Merchant Royal_, 204, 211
    _Merhonour_, 228
    _Meteor_, 331
    _Michael of Yarmouth_, 159
    _Minion_, 321
    _Mora_, 137
    _Murrian_, 187, 188
    _Newcastle_, 258
    _Nicholas_, 160
    _Nina_, 180, 183
    _Northampton_, 271
    _Nyria_, 333
    _Oimara_, 326
    _Olive Bank_, 273
    _Pampas_, 331
    _Peter_, 160
    _Peter of Wiveton_, 160
    _Peter Pomegranate_, 185
    _Phœnix_, 245
    _Pinkie_, 294
    _Pinta_, 180, 183
    _Potosi_, 274
    _Preussen_, 275
    _Prince Royal_, 197, 227, 228, 229, 230, 242
    _Prince, The_, 240, 242
    _Queen_, 260, 261, 262
    _Queen Margaret_, 274
    _Rattler_, 263
    _Red Dragon_, 221
    _Regent_, 174, 180, 184
    _Reliance_, 331
    _Resolution_, 242, 244
    _Royal Charles_, 240, 241
    _Royal Frederick_, 260
    _Royal George_, 10, 195, 250, 251, 322
    _Royal Louis_, 239, 243
    _Royal Prince_, 242
    _Royal Sovereign_, 229
    _Royal Sovereign_ (yacht), 322
    _Rupert_, 244
    _Sans Pareil_, 257
    _Santa Maria_, 53, 176, 180, 181, 183;
      modern replica, 180;
      model, 182
    _Sappho_, 326
    _Satanita_, 329
    _Scomberg_, 270
    _Sea Witch_, 269
    _Serica_, 270
    _Shamrock_, 10, 282
    _Shamrock III._, 331, 332
    _Shamrock IV._, 333
    _Shipper Berline of Prussia_, 159
    _Sir Lancelot_, 270, 271
    _Soll Royal_ (_Le Soleil Royal_), 239, 243
    _Sovereign_, 175, 179, 180, 184, 185, 242
    _Sovereign of the Seas_, 7, 229, 230, 267
    _Stonehouse_, 271
    _Struse of Dawske_, 187, 188
    _Sunbeam_, 297, 327, 330
    _Susan_, 221
    _Sweepstake_, 177
    _Taeping_, 270
    _Taitsing_, 270
    _Tartarus_, 263
    _Terrible_, 250
    _Thermopylæ_, 270, 271
    _Thistle_, 328
    _Thomas W. Lawson_, 296
    _Thyatera_, 270
    _Tiger_, 190
    _Tillikum_, 302
    _Trade’s Increase_, 226
    _Trinitie_, 159
    _Trinity of Wight_, 185
    _Trinity Royal_, 160
    _Triumph_, 197, 204
    _Valhalla_, 327, 330
    _Valkyrie_, 330
    _Valkyrie I._, 330
    _Vanguard_, 201
    _Vernon_, 260
    _Victoria and Albert_, 322
    _Victory_ (Elizabethan), 242
    _Victory_ (Nelson’s), 140, 251, 262
    _Whang-Ho_, 312
    _White Elephant, The_, 240
    _White Heather II._, 10, 332
    _Xarifa_, 324

  Ships, naming of, 125

  Ships, sizes, Phœnician, 54;
    Roman, 75, 81

  Ships, types:
    Reconstruction of former types, 6
    Actuaria, 86, 107
    American clippers, 266
    American frigates, 256
    American schooner, 296
    Ballingers, 160
    Barges, 145, 154, 160, 305, 306
    Barks, or barques, 139, 208, 272, 273, 300, 301
    Barquentine, 298
    Bastard galleasses, 206
    Bawley, 290
    Billy-boy, 303
    Bireme, 48
    Bomb ketch, 235, 249, 302
    Bombay yacht, 309
    Brigantine, 208, 300
    Brigs, 249, 258, 299, 300
    British clippers, 267
    Brixham Mumble Bees, 291
    Bucca, buss, or buzzo, 124, 139, 145
    Burmese junk, 31
    Caracks, 139, 140, 160, 170, 173, 215
    Caravels, 139, 171, 180
    Carra-muzzal, 218
    Carvel-built, 166, 190
    Catascopiscus, 86
    Chasse-Marée, 314
    Chinese junk, 31
    Cladivata, 88
    Clippers, 256, 267
    Coasters, 258, 277
    Cogs, 145
    Collier, steam, 258
    Coracle, 103
    Corbita, 86
    Cornish lugger, 317
    Corvettes, 252
    Crayers, 185
    Cutters, 289
    Deal “galley,” 131
    Deal luggers, 318
    Dhow, 44
    Dragon, 124
    Dromons, 139, 143
    Dug-out, 25, 90, 95
    Dutch fly-boat, 294
    Dutch galleon, 219
    Dutch schuyt, 220, 285
    East Indiamen, 258, 264
    Egyptian “nugger,” 43
    Esnecca, 124, 133, 146
    Felucca, 309
    Fore-and-aft schooner, 277
    Frigate, 205, 208, 232, 252
    Galleasses, 69, 204, 205, 206, 212
    Galleons, 203, 205, 206, 213, 219
    Galleys, 57, 139, 216, 246
    Galleys as war-vessels, 171, 204, 206
    Galliots, 204, 208, 303
    Gloucester schooner, 294
    Great ships, 139, 204
    Gun-brigs, 249
    Hailam junk, 310
    Hermaphrodite brig, 300
    Hippago, 85, 145
    Hoys, 235
    Iron barque, 272
    Iron ships, 259, 268
    Italian merchantman, 206
    Jackass barque, 301
    Junks, 31, 310
    Ketch, 235, 302
    Koryak craft, 32
    Large sailing ship, 254
    Lifeboat, 255
    Long serpent, 124, 133, 146
    Longship, 124
    Lowestoft drifter, 304
    Luggers, 312 _et seq._
    Merchant vessels, 172, 205, 206
    Monoxylon, 95
    Motor barges, 280
    Motor-propelled ships, 291
    Musculus, or mydion, 85
    Nave, 218
    Norfolk wherry, 307
    Paddle-sloop, 263
    Paddle-steamers, 263
    Paro, 85
    Penzance lugger, 318
    Pink, 236
    Pinnace, 205, 208, 229
    Plymouth hooker, 291
    Ponto, 87
    Portuguese carack, 215
    Prosumia, 87
    Quadrireme, 65
    Schedia, 85
    Schooners, 277, 292 _et seq._
    Schuyt, Dutch, 220, 285
    Scotch “Zulus,” 317
    Screw ship, 263
    Shallops, 208
    Sibbick rater, 309
    Skin boats, 102-105
    Skuta, 120, 124
    Sloops, 220, 249, 292
    Snekkja, 124, 133, 146
    Spanish treasure-frigates, 214
    Square-rigged, 192
    Steam collier, 258
    “Stumpies,” 305
    Tartana, 218
    Tesseraria, 85
    Thames barge, 305
    Three-decker, 227, 229
    Topsail schooner, 298
    Trireme, 48, 69
    Victualling ships, 185
    Viking, or double-ended, 90, 106
    Viking-like, 171
    Visser, 145
    Warships, Tudor, 178, 188, 203
    Wherry, Norfolk, 307
    Yachts, 289, 320 _et seq._
    Yarmouth yawl, 315
    Yawls, 314
    Yorkshire cobble, 60
    “Zulus,” 317

  Shotover, 234

  Shovel, Sir Cloudesley, 247

  Sidon, coins of, 52

  Signals, code of, 188, 249

  Sigurdson, Harald, 122

  Skins for boats, 102-105

  Sluys, battle of, 157

  Smith’s, Captain John, description of taking a prize, 223-225

  Smyth, Mr. Warington, 307, 310

  Snape, Suffolk, Viking ship discovered at, 115

  Soames & Co., Messrs., 271

  Solent, the, 322

  Somerscales, Mr. T., 5

  South Kensington Museum, models in, 5, 181, 216, 241, 271, 299, 309,
        311, 328

  Southampton Water, 174

  Southend, 290

  Spanish Armada. _See_ Armada

  Spanish maritime progress, sixteenth century, 180

  Spanish seamen, time of Armada, 204

  Spanish treasure-frigates, 214

  Spars, interchangeable, 260

  Speiring’s, Francis, tapestries of Spanish Armada, 207

  Spithead, 250

  Spritsail, 265, 283

  Squaresail, 11, 244, 281

  Stanfield, Clarkson, 5

  Staysail, 283

  Steamships, supersede sailing vessels, 2, 272;
    introduction into the Navy, 263

  Steele & Co., Messrs., Greenock, 267, 271, 326

  Steele, Mr. William, 326

  Steering paddles, 146

  Sterns, 12, 16, 244, 289;
    “canoe,” 276;
    circular, 257;
    overhanging, 329

  Stone age, the, and shipbuilding, 94, 99

  Stone implements in modern use, 99

  Stow Wood, 234

  Stuart, Mr. Villiers, 33

  Suez Canal, 272

  Suiones, the, 110

  Summercastle, 175

  Sunderland, 266

  Sydney, Sir Philip, 209

  Symonds, Sir William, 259, 299


  Tacitus, 108, 109

  Tacking, the ancients and, 44

  Tallow for bottoms of ships, 232

  Tapestries, ships on, 130;
    Bayeux Tapestry, 17, 134;
    Spanish Armada, House of Lords, 207

  Tea trade, the China, 268

  Teak, 257

  Tecklenborg, Messrs. J. C., 275

  Telescopes, 193

  Terry’s, Captain C. E., model of the _Santa Maria_, 182

  Thompson, Messrs. J., & Co., 267, 271

  Timbers, diagonal, 257

  Tonnage measurement, 231

  Topgallant sail, 175

  Topmasts, 173, 195

  Topsails, 83, 284

  Trading vessels. _See_ Merchant ships

  Trafalgar, 254, 262;
    mistake in signals, 252

  Trinity House Corporation, 193;
    pictures, 227

  Tromp, Admiral van, 285

  Trondhjem Fjord, ships found on shores of, 114

  Trumpeting on ancient ships, 149

  Tudor colours, the, 191

  Tudor period, development of ships during the, 221

  Tuke, Mr. H. S., 5

  “Tumblehome,” 168, 244

  Tune Viking ship, 117

  Tunis, excavations near, 84

  Turkish pirates, vessels of, 218

  Turner, J. M. W., R.A., pictures by, 5, 259, 285, 289, 300, 323

  Tyre and Sidon, kings of, 49


  Union flag, the, 241, 242

  Union Jack, the, 254

  United Service Museum. _See_ Royal United Service Museum

  United States coasting trade, 296

  Ursula, St., the pilgrimage of, 4, 162


  Valdermoor Marsh, Schleswig-Holstein, boat found at, 95

  Vasco da Gama, 51, 184

  Velde, Willem Van der, 5, 229, 285, 287, 289

  Velleius Paterculus, 102

  Veneti, ships of the, 90, 93, 105, 106

  Venetian warship (thirteenth century), 142

  Venetians, English ships purchased from, 190

  Venice, St. Mark’s, mosaics in, 130, 144

  Venice, ships of, 153, 170

  Victoria and Albert Museum. _See_ South Kensington Museum

  Victoria, Queen, 260

  Viking ships, 10, 13, 14, 90, 110;
    arrangements of, 122, 125, 127;
    sails, 122-124;
    steering, 156;
    navigation, 126;
    the Phœnicians and, 92;
    connection between and the Mediterranean galleys, 91;
    discovery of remains of ships, 115-122

  Vikings, the, influence of on ships, 156, 285;
    harass England and France, 130;
    burial in ship-shape graves, 113-115

  Virginia, 246

  Voss, Captain J. C., 302

  Vroom, Hendrik C., pictures by, 207, 220


  Wanhill, Thomas, of Poole, 324, 326

  War-galleys, Greek, 60

  Warships and warfare, Norse, 124-125

  Watson, Mr. G. L., 328

  Waymouth, Mr., 271

  West Countrymen, _temp._ Elizabeth, 202

  West Indiaman, 259

  West Indies, 214, 258, 259

  Whale-boats, 14

  Whitby, 303

  White Brothers, Messrs., 331

  White Ensign, the, 254, 255

  White, Mr. H. W., 331

  Whitstable, 290

  William the Conqueror, 17, 134

  Willoughby, Sir Hugh, 191

  Wilton, Earl of, 324

  Winchelsea, seal of, 149

  Winches, 179

  Winchester Cathedral, font, 129, 136

  Wool trade, Flemish, 154

  Woolwich, 227, 246, 250, 321

  Wyllie, Mr. W. L., R.A., 5

  Wynter, Sir William, 201


  Xerxes, 48, 56


  Yacht, first, in England, 289;
    modification of yacht design, 328;
    sterns of Dutch yachts, 243;
    the word “yacht,” 320

  Yachting, 244, 321 _et seq._;
    international yachting rules, 332

  Yarborough, Earl of, 323

  Yards, 181

  Yarmouth, 129, 304, 307, 315

  Yonkers, 225

  York Museum, ancient boat in, 100

  Yorkshire cobble, 60


  Zarebas, 22

  Zuyder Zee, 282




PLANS


[Illustration: PLAN 1. THE _GJOA_: SAIL AND RIGGING PLAN.]

[Illustration: PLAN 2. THE _GJOA_: LONGITUDINAL SECTION.]

[Illustration: PLAN 3. THE _GJOA_: DECK PLAN.]

[Illustration: PLAN 4. THE _ROYAL SOVEREIGN_, GEORGE III’S YACHT.]

[Illustration: PLAN 5. SCHOONER _ELIZABETH_: SAIL PLAN.]

[Illustration: PLAN 6. SCHOONER _ELIZABETH_: DECK PLAN.]

[Illustration: PLAN 7. SCHOONER _ELIZABETH_: LONGITUDINAL SECTION.]

[Illustration: PLAN 8. SCHOONER _PAMPAS_: SAIL AND RIGGING PLAN.]

[Illustration: PLAN 9. SCHOONER _PAMPAS_: LONGITUDINAL AND HORIZONTAL
SECTIONS.]




FOOTNOTES:

[1] “Gizeh and Rifeh,” by W. M. Flinders Petrie, London, 1907.
(Double volume.)

[2] “A Guide to the Third and Fourth Egyptian Rooms, British Museum,”
London, 1904.

[3] “The Jesup North Pacific Expedition,” vol. vi. part ii., “The
Koryak”; see pp. 534-538. By W. Jochelson, New York, 1908.

[4] See “The Egypt Exploration Fund: Archæological Report, 1906-1907.”

[5] “The Tomb of Hatshopsitu,” p. 30, by Edouard Naville, London,
1906.

[6] “Egypt Exploration Fund: The Temple of Deir-el-Bahari,” by
Edouard Naville.

[7] “The Fleet of an Egyptian Queen,” by Dr. Johannes Duemichen.
Leipzig, 1868.

[8] “Egypt Exploration Fund: The Temple of Deir-el-Bahari,” p. 16.

[9] “The Dawn of Civilisation—Egypt,” by Professor Maspero, London,
1894.

[10] For some valuable matter regarding Greek and Roman ships I wish
to acknowledge my indebtedness to the following, especially the first
two of these:

“Ancient Ships,” by Cecil Torr, Cambridge, 1894.

“Dictionnaire des Antiquités Grecques et Romanes,” by Ch. Daremberg
(article under “Navis,” by Cecil Torr), Paris, 1905.

“A Companion to Greek Studies,” by L. Whibley, Cambridge, 1905. (See
article on “Ships,” by A. B. Cook, p. 475 _et seq._)

[11] “The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries
of the English Nation,” by Richard Hakluyt. Preface to the second
edition.

[12] Even still more wonderful and more to the point, as having
sailed to the entrance of the Mediterranean, is the passage of the
_Columbia II._, a tiny ship only 19 feet long with 6 feet beam.
Navigated solely by Capt. Eisenbram, she sailed from Boston, U.S.A.,
to Gibraltar, encountering severe weather on the way, in 100 days.
(See the _Times_ newspaper of November 21, 1903.)

[13] An illustration of this will be found in “Pompeji in Leben und
Kunst,” by August Mau, Leipzig, 1908.

[14] A model of this ship is to be seen in the Louvre. See “Musée
Rétrospectif de la Classe 33. Matériel de la Navigation de Commerce à
l’Exposition Universelle Internationale de 1900, à Paris. Rapport du
Comité d’Installation.”

[15] “Ancient Ships,” by Cecil Torr, Cambridge, 1894.

[16] “Lazari Bayfii annotationes ... de re navali.” Paris, 1536.

[17] See “Caligula’s Galleys in the Lake of Nemi,” by St. Clair
Baddeley, article in the _Nineteenth Century and After_, March,
1909; also “Le Navi Romane del Lago di Nemi,” by V. Malfatti, Rome,
1905, which gives an interesting account, with illustrations, of
the finding of these galleys, as well as an excellent plan of one
of the ships of Caligula as far as she has been explored. She has a
rounded stern and pointed bow. An ingenious pictorial effort is made
to reconstruct the galley afresh. The book contains photographs of
the floats, showing the shape of the boat, and of some of the chief
relics recovered in 1895.

[18] “Life of Caligula,” xxxvii.

[19] See p. 245.

[20] Acts xxvii.

[21] “Un Catalogue Figuré de la Batellerie Gréco-Romaine—La Mosaïque
d’Althiburus,” par P. Gauckler, in “Monuments et Mémoires.” Tome
douzième, Paris, 1905.

[22] “De Bello Civili,” iii. 29.

[23] Sagas—or “says,” narratives—are records of the leading events
of the lives of great Norsemen and their families. Hundreds of
these records exist, though many of them are purely mythical. They
date from a period not earlier than the sixth century of our era,
but the downward limit cannot be exactly fixed. Not unnaturally,
in such national epics as centre round the kings of Sweden, Norway
and Denmark, we find references to sailing ships both frequent and
detailed.

[24] “This northern civilisation,” says Du Chaillu, in his account
of these people (“The Viking Age,” vol. i. p. 4, London, 1889) “was
peculiar to itself, having nothing in common with the Roman world,
Rome knew nothing of these people till they began to frequent the
coasts of her North Sea provinces, in the days of Tacitus, and after
his time, the Mediterranean.... The manly civilisation the Northmen
possessed was their own ... it seems to have advanced north from
about the shores of the Black Sea, and ... many northern customs were
like those of the ancient Greeks.”

[25] Cæsar, “De Bello Gallico,” iii. chap. 13: “Pro loci natura, pro
vi tempestatum, illis essent aptiora et accommodatoria.”

[26] “Notes on Shipbuilding and Nautical Terms of Old in the North,”
a paper read before the Viking Society for Northern Research by
Eiríkr Magnússon. London, 1906.

[27] It was presented to the Hull Museum while this book was in the
press, June 1909.

[28] “A Prehistoric Boat,” a lecture by Rev. D. Cary-Elwes.
Northampton, 1903.

[29] Tacitus, “Hist.” v. 23.

[30] “Annual Report of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution:
Prehistoric Naval Architecture of the North of Europe,” by George H.
Boehmer. Washington, 1892. (See p. 527.)

[31] Cæsar, “De Bello Civili,” book i. chap. 54: “Imperat militibus
Cæsar, ut naves faciant, cujus generis eum superioribus annis usus
Britanniæ docuerat. Carinæ primum ac statumina ex levi materia
fiebant: reliquum corpus navium viminibus contextum, coriis
integebatur.”

[32] Cæsar, “De Bello Gallico,” III. xiii.: “Namque ipsorum naves
ad hunc modum factæ armatæque erant: carinæ aliquanto planiores
quam nostrarum navium, quo facilius vada ac decessum æstus excipere
possent: proræ admodum erectæ atque item puppes ad magnitudinem
fluctuum tempestatumque accommodatæ; naves totæ factæ ex robore
ad quamvis vim et contumeliam perferendam: transtra pedalibus
in altitudinem trabibus confixa clavis ferreis digiti pollicis
crassitudine; ancoræ pro funibus ferreis catenis revinctæ; pelles pro
velis alutæque tenuiter confectæ, [hæc] sive propter lini inopiam
atque ejus usus inscientiam, sive eo, quod est magis verisimile, quod
tantas tempestates Oceani tantosque impetus ventorum sustineri ac
tanta onera navium regi velis non satis commode posse arbitrabantur.”

Mr. St. George Stock in his edition (Cæsar, “De Bello Gallico,”
books i.-vii., edited by St. George Stock, Oxford, 1898) understands
“transtra” not to mean the rowing benches but crossbeams or decks.

[33] The Veneti lived in the extreme north-west corner of France,
and have left behind the name of the town Vannes, facing the Bay of
Biscay, and opposite Belle Isle.

The Greeks and Romans having learned their seamanship on the
practically tideless waters of the Mediterranean must have been
appalled by the ebb and flow of the Northern Seas. Cæsar was ignorant
of the moon’s relation to tides until taught by bitter experience.
He was taught only by the damage done to his ships in Britain. (“De
Bello Gallico,” iv. 29). The Veneti, however, understood all these
things, for Cæsar remarks, “quod et naves habent Veneti plurimas,
quibus in Britanniam navigare consuerunt, et scientia atque usu
nauticarum rerum reliquos antecedunt.” Further on he refers to the
Bay of Biscay as the great, boisterous, open sea, “in magno impetu
maris atque aperto.” (“De Bello Gallico,” book iii. chap. 8). It is
to Pytheas (referred to previously) that Plutarch gives the credit of
having detected the influence of the moon on tides.

The reader wishing to pursue the subject is referred to “Cæsar’s
Conquest of Gaul,” by T. Rice Holmes. London, 1899.

[34] Tacitus’ “Annals,” ii. 23 and 6. “Mille naves sufficere visæ
properatæque, aliæ breves, angusta puppi proraque et lato utero,
quo facilius fluctus tolerarent, quædam planæ carinis ut sine noxa
siderent: plures adpositis utrimque gubernaculis, converso ut repente
remigio hinc vel illinc adpellerent: multæ pontibus stratæ, super
quas tormenta veherentur ... velis habiles, citæ remis augebantur
alacritate militum in speciem ac terrorem” (ii. 6).

Mr. Henry Furneaux in his edition of the “Annals” (Oxford 1896),
commenting on “pontibus,” thinks these formed a partial deck across
the midships which would have the appearance of a bridge when viewed
from bow or stern.

[35] Roman ships were sometimes built in 60 days, while there is a
record of 220 having been built in 45 days.

[36] Du Chaillu points out the interesting fact that it was not until
after the Danes and Norwegians had succeeded in planting themselves
in this country that the inhabitants of our land exhibited that
love of the sea and ships which has been our greatest national
characteristic for so many centuries. Certainly when the Romans
invaded Britain our forefathers had no fleet with which to oppose
them.

[37] Tacitus, “De situ, moribus et populis Germaniæ libellus,” chap.
44: “Suionum hinc civitates, ipsæ in Oceano, præter viros armaque
classibus valent. Forma navium eo differt quod utrinque prora paratam
semper appulsui frontem agit: nec velis ministrantur, nec remos in
ordinem lateribus adjungunt: solutum, ut in quibusdam fluminum, et
mutabile, ut res poscit, hinc vel illinc remigium.”

[38] “Norges Oldtid,” by Gabriel Gustafson. Kristiania, 1906.

[39] “Notes on Shipbuilding and Nautical Terms of Old in the North,”
by Eiríkr Magnússon. A paper read before the Viking Club for Northern
Research. London, 1906.

[40] Du Chaillu (“The Viking Age,” _vide supra_) attributes
these ship-form graves to the Iron Age, and remarks that similar
monuments have been found in England and Scotland. “One of the most
interesting,” he adds, “is that where the rowers’ seats are marked,
and even a stone placed in the position of the mast” (p. 309, vol.
i.). This is reproduced in Fig. 27.

[41] For further details as to the Viking mode of burial, the reader
is referred to vol. i. chap. xix. of Du Chaillu’s “The Viking Age.”

[42] See “The Old Northern Runic Monuments of Scandinavia and
England,” vol. i., by George Stephens, F.S.A., London, 1866.

[43] “Ancient and Modern Ships,” part i., “Wooden Sailing Ships,” p.
60, by Sir George C. V. Holmes, K.C.V.O., C.B., London, 1900.

[44] Magnússon’s “Notes on Shipbuilding,” &c., _ut supra_, p. 50.

[45] Reproduced on p. 126, fig. 536, of Prof. Gustafson’s “Norges
Oldtid.”

[46] Evidently the early Europeans did not merely make rash voyages,
trusting entirely to good luck to reach their port. It is quite clear
that they had given serious study to seamanship by the early part of
the fifth century, for when Lupus and German, two Gallic prelates,
crossed the Channel to Britain in the year 429 A.D., they encountered
very bad weather, and Constantius adds that St. German poured oil on
the waves. The latter’s earlier days having been spent in Gaul, in
Rome and as duke over a wide district, he had evidently picked up
this item of seamanship from the mariners of the southern shores.
(See Canon Bright’s “Chapters of Early English Church History,”
Oxford, 1897, p. 19 and notes.)

[47] “Navi Venete da codici Marini e dipinti,” by Cesare Augusto
Levi, Venice, 1892.

[48] See the ship in the seal of Dam, Fig. 40.

[49] “Social England,” edited by H. D. Traill, D.C.L., and J. S.
Mann, M.A., London, 1901. See article by W. Laird Clowes, vol. i. p.
589.

[50] See “Handbook to the Coins of Great Britain and Ireland in the
British Museum,” London, 1899.

The Edward III. coin will be found to be reproduced on all the
publications of the Navy Records Society.

[51] Ballingers were long, low vessels for oars and sails, introduced
in the fourteenth century by Biscayan builders.

[52] See “Gentile da Fabriano,” p. 134, by Arduino Colasanti, Bergamo
1909.

[53] See Fig. 37 in “Navi Venete.”

[54] See “The Life and Works of Vittorio Carpaccio,” by Pompeo
Molmenti and Gustav Ludwig, London, 1907.

[55] “Hans Memling,” p. 46, by W. H. James Weale, London, 1901.

[56] Reproduced in “Navi Venete,” Fig. 96.

[57] See “Musée Rétrospectif de la Classe 33,” &c.

[58] This MS. has been carefully reproduced in “Monuments et
Mémoires,” par Georges Perrot and Robert de la Steyrie. Tome onzième.
See article on “Un Manuscrit de la Bibliothèque de Philippe le bon à
Saint-Pétersbourg,” Paris, 1904.

[59] See “Ancient and Modern Ships,” p. 74, by Sir G. C. V. Holmes,
London, 1900.

[60] “Naval Accounts and Inventories of the Reign of Henry VII.,”
edited by M. Oppenheim, Navy Records Society, 1896. I wish to
acknowledge my indebtedness to this valuable volume for much
information in connection with Henry VII.’s ships.

[61] In the Middle Ages it was the custom to refer to the masts of a
ship possessing four in the manner as above. The aftermost was the
bonaventure.

[62] “On the Spanish Main,” by John Masefield, London, 1906. See
chap, xvi., on “Ships and Rigs.”

[63] See article by W. Laird Clowes in vol. ii. of Traill and Mann’s
“Social England,” London, 1901.

[64] See “Christopher Columbus and the New World of his Discovery,”
by Filson Young, London, 1906. The reader is especially advised
to study an admirable article in vol. ii. of this work on “The
Navigation of Columbus’s First Voyage,” by the Earl of Dunraven.

[65] See “Ancient and Modern Ships,” by Sir G. C. V. Holmes.

[66] London, 1830.

[67] “Navi Venete.”

[68] See “Letters and Papers relating to the War with France,
1512-1513,” by Alfred Spont, Navy Records Society, 1897.

[69] “A History of the Administration of the Royal Navy and of
Merchant Shipping in Relation to the Navy,” vol. i., 1509-1660, by M.
Oppenheim, London, 1896.

[70] “On the Spanish Main,” by John Masefield, chap. xvi., on “Ships
and Rigs.”

[71] Reprinted in “The Naval Miscellany,” edited by Professor Sir J.
K. Laughton, M.A., R.N., vol. i., Navy Records Society, 1902.

[72] This was the Missa Sicca (Messe Sèche), the “Messe Navale,” or
“Missa Nautica,” in which no consecration took place.

[73] See “Companion to English History (Middle Ages),” edited by F.
P. Barnard, M.A., F.S.A., Oxford, 1902; article on “Shipping,” by M.
Oppenheim.

[74] Manwayring, who fought in the English Fleet against the Armada,
states that a “cross-sail” (square-rigged) ship in a sea cannot sail
nearer than six points, unless there be tide or current setting her
to windward.

[75] See chap. iii. p. 78. This revival in Edward VI.’s time of lead
sheathing was copied from the contemporary custom among Spanish ships.

[76] P. 16.

[77] “Judicious and Select Essayes,” p. 33.

[78] See article on “Public Health,” by Charles Creighton, on p. 763,
vol. i., of Traill and Mann’s “Social England.”

[79] “Naval Tracts of Sir William Monson,” edited by M. Oppenheim,
Navy Records Society. See vol. ii. p. 235.

[80] Edited by Professor Sir J. K. Laughton, M.A., R.N., Navy Records
Society, 1894.

[81] Given on p. 274 of “State Papers relating to the Defeat of the
Spanish Armada,” _vide supra_.

[82] _Ibid._ p. 82.

[83] See “The British Mercantile Marine: a Short Historical Review,”
by Edward Blackmore, London, 1897.

[84] “Naval Tracts of Sir William Monson,” edited by M. Oppenheim,
Navy Records Society, 1902. See vol. ii. p. 328.

[85] “Papers relating to the Navy during the Spanish War, 1585-1587,”
edited by J. S. Corbett, LL.M., Navy Records Society, 1898. I wish
to express my indebtedness to this volume, and to Mr. Oppenheim’s
“Naval Tracts of Sir William Monson,” for much matter in regard to
the different types of Elizabethan ships.

[86] The reader who desires fuller information on the subject is
referred to an interesting article “The Lost Tapestries of the House
of Lords,” in _Harper’s Monthly Magazine_, April, 1907, from the pen
of Mr. Edmund Gosse.

[87] These nettings were at first made of metal chain, but in the
time of Elizabeth they were of rope.

[88] The illustration is taken from a print in the British Museum
made by an artist who was born in 1620.

[89] It is interesting to note that in the year 1903 some Armada
relics, consisting of a bronze breach loader, found fully charged,
and a pair of bronze compasses were recovered from the wreck of the
Spanish galleon _Florencia_, in Tobermory Bay, Isle of Mull. She had
formed one of the Spanish fleet which fled up the North Sea from the
English Channel, round the north of Scotland to the west coast, where
in August of 1588 this 900-ton ship was blown up.

[90] See “Naval Tracts of Sir William Monson,” vol. ii. p. 318 _et
seq._

[91] See vol. x., p. 158, of Maclehose’s edition of 1903.

[92] This map will be found reproduced at p. 171, vol. ii., of
Maclehose’s edition of Hakluyt, published in 1903.

[93] That is to say he not merely covers with the canvas-cloth the
whole length of the deck to prevent boarding, but the nettings would
also be drawn over the waist to catch the falling wreckage of spars.
(See Fig. 53.)

[94] Dexterous.

[95] “Boord and boord”—_i.e._, when two ships touch each other.

Manwayring advises against boarding the enemy at the quarter, which
is the worst place, because it is high. The best place for entering
was at the bows, but the best point for the play of the guns was to
come up to her “athwart her hawes”—_i.e._, across her bows. By this
means you could then bring all your broadside to play upon her, while
all the time the enemy could only use her chase and prow pieces.

[96] I am far from convinced, however, that the drawing is in this
respect correct. Edward Hayward in his book on “The Sizes and Lengths
of Riggings for all His Majesties Ships and Frigates,” printed in
London in 1660, only twenty-three years after the _Sovereign of the
Seas_ was launched, makes no mention whatever of either her royals or
of any mast or spar above topgallant, although he mentions in detail
the masts and yards and rigging and sails other than royals. He does
mention, however, that the _Sovereign_ carried a bonnet to be laced
on to her spritsail. It is possible, however, that the royals were
added in 1684, when she was rebuilt.

[97] See Appendix II. of “Ancient and Modern Ships,” by Sir G. C. V.
Holmes.

[98] See “A History of the Administration of the Royal Navy and of
Merchant Shipping in Relation to the Navy,” &c., by M. Oppenheim, p.
268.

[99] Edited by J. R. Tanner, M.A., Navy Records Society, 1896, from
the MSS. in the Pepysian Library.

[100] I am indebted for many important details of this reign to “A
Descriptive Catalogue of the Naval MSS. in the Pepysian Library at
Magdalene, Cambridge,” edited by Dr. J. R. Tanner, Navy Records
Society, 1903.

[101] “Judicious and Select Essayes and Observations,” p. 29.

[102] But see Chapter IX. of this volume.

[103] “Ancient and Modern Ships,” pp. 111, 112.

[104] “The Royal Navy,” by W. Laird Clowes, London, 1898. See p. 25,
vol. ii.

[105] “Life of Captain Stephen Martin, 1666-1740,” edited by Clement
R. Markham, C.B., F.R.S., Navy Records Society, 1895. See p. 24.

[106] “Old Sea Wings, Ways and Words in the Days of Oak and Hemp,” by
Robert C. Leslie, London, 1890.

[107] For the purpose of not showing too prominently the blood shed
in casualties.

[108] For further matter regarding the American frigates, the reader
is referred to “American Merchant Ships and Sailors,” by William J.
Abbot, New York, 1902.

[109] See pp. 36-37.

[110] For some of the facts in connection with this period I
am indebted to articles by the late Sir W. Laird Clowes in his
monumental history of “The Royal Navy,” and in Traill and Mann’s
“Social England.”

[111] “The Navy Sixty Years Ago,” by Admiral Moresby, in the
_National Review_ of December 1908.

[112] See an interesting article by Mr. Frank T. Bullen on “Deep-Sea
Sailing” in the _Yachting Monthly_ of August 1907, to which I am
indebted for some details of information.

[113] See “La Navigation Commerciale au XIX^e Siècle,” by Ambroise
Colin, Paris, 1901.

[114] “Ancient and Modern Ships,” part ii., “The Era of Steam, Iron
and Steel,” p. 24, by Sir George C. V. Holmes, K.C.V.O., C.B.,
London, 1906.

[115] “The British Mercantile Marine,” by Edward Blackmore, London,
1897.

[116] In connection with this chapter, I wish to acknowledge my
indebtedness to certain matter contained in the following:

“Architectura Navalis Mercatoria,” by F. H. Chapman, Holmiæ, 1768;
“The History of Yachting,” by Arthur H. Clark, New York, 1904;
“Yachting,” by Sir Edward Sullivan, Bart., Lord Brassey, &c., 2
vols., London, 1894-95; “Mast and Sail in Europe and Asia,” by H.
Warington Smyth, London, 1906; “Lloyd’s Almanac”; “Lloyd’s Yacht
Register,” &c.; the _Yachtsman_; the _Yachting World_; the _Yachting
Monthly_.

[117] “Architectura Navalis Mercatoria,” by F. H. Chapman, Holmiæ,
1768.

[118] This vessel was until recently in Portsmouth Harbour.




  TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE

  The page number in the caption of Plate illustrations, a typesetter
  indicator, has been removed. These Plates are indicated by the
  words ‘to face’ in the List of Illustrations.

  Many illustrations have been moved to be closer to the related text.

  Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been
  corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within
  the text and consultation of external sources.

  Some hyphens in words have been silently removed, some added,
  when a predominant preference was found in the original book.

  Except for those changes noted below, all misspellings in the text,
  and inconsistent or archaic usage, have been retained.

  All occurrences of ‘Memlinc’ have been changed to ‘Memling’.

  Pg 37: ‘again been stretched’ replaced by ‘again being stretched’.
  Pg 94: ‘ancient Northener’ replaced by ‘ancient Northerner’.
  Pg 94: ‘found that be could’ replaced by ‘found that he could’.
  Pg 201: ‘and at at any rate’ replaced by ‘and at any rate’.
  Pg 276: ‘on the i en a single’ replaced by ‘on the mizzen a single’.
  Pg 276: ‘continu  till they’ replaced by ‘continued till they’.
  Pg 328: ‘nas been made’ replaced by ‘has been made’.
  Pg 339: ‘postliminis reversis’ replaced by ‘postliminio reversis’.
  Pg 340: ‘Darenburg, Ch.’ replaced by ‘Daremberg, Ch.’.
  Pg 347: ‘Capelle, Jan’ replaced by ‘Cappelle, Jan’.
  Pg 352: ‘Mainwayring, Sir’ replaced by ‘Manwayring, Sir’.
  Pg 358: ‘_Vahalla_’ replaced by ‘_Valhalla_’.