Up to this point, in making out how the simpler kinds of boats came into existence, history gives no help. Not only does their origin mostly lie beyond record, but by the time we come fairly into history we find the ancient nations knowing how to build vessels of more advanced order, framed with keel and ribs, and sheathed with nailed planks, in fact the direct predecessors of our own ships. Egypt, or somewhere else in that Old World region of ancient culture, may have been the original centre whence the higher shipwrights’ craft spread over the world. It is instructive to study the ancient Egyptian vessel (Fig. 71) depicted on the wall of a Theban tomb, and to see how far it already has in a rudimentary state the parts which we recognise as belonging to the fully-developed ship. As was common, it was a combination of rowing-galley and sailing-ship. The rowers sit on cross benches, pulling at the oars which pass through loops, while at the stern is worked the great steering-oar which is the ancestor of our rudder (this used to be merely an oar, which its name originally meant, like ruder in German). There is a mast held up by stays and carrying yards, with ropes rigged to hoist them and to furl the sail. The forecastle and poop are already represented by raised structures on the deck. In the Egyptian pictures of war-ships it is seen how these served as stations for the archers, while the fighting-men were also protected behind a bulwark, and there is even the “crow’s nest” on the top of the mast serving as a place for slingers to hurl stones from at the enemy, from which comes our “mast-head.” Comparing with the Egyptian vessels the ancient galleys and ships of the Mediterranean, whether Phœnician, Greek, or Roman, it is impossible to think these can have come into existence by separate lines of invention; the family likeness among them is too strong. Even farther off, the likeness of the craft still used in the Ganges to the ancient Nile-boats is surprising, and the eye of Osiris painted on the Egyptian funeral bark that carried the dead across the lake to the western burial-place, may perhaps have first suggested the painting of eyes as ornaments on the bows of boats, from the barks in Valetta harbour in the west to the junks of Canton in the east. In following the course of development from the ancient to the modern ship, we notice that from time to time new appliances come in, as metal sheathing to protect the planks from the boring teredo, the iron fluked anchor instead of a great stone, the capstan for hauling, &c. More masts and spars now served to carry more sails, and tier above tier of rowers impelled the classic bireme and trireme. The war-galley lasted on into our own time in the Venetian navy, kept in use in spite of its bad sea-going quality, for its power of dashing upon sailing-vessels helpless in a calm. The galley-slaves who laboured at the huge oars were captives or criminals, and though the French galleys no longer remain for penal servitude, the term galérien or galley-slave still means a convict. The vast improvement of European sailing-vessels in the middle ages is in great measure due to an invention learnt from the far east—the mariner’s compass. Ships, now able to steer their courses on long voyages out of sight of land, were improved in build and rigging, while the men-of-war with several decks armed with tiers of cannon became floating castles. Lastly, during the present century, steam-power has been applied to propel the ship from within, the paddle-wheel or screw in fact taking the place of the old banks of oars, and the changeable wind-power being now only turned to account as an occasional aid and means of saving fuel. It is needless to describe the changes which modern armour-plating and huge guns have made in the construction of ships of war, but even these still show plainly enough how they were formed by successive alterations from the primitive canoe.