Sailing ships

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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.