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SHIPS
OF THE SEVEN
SEAS
[Illustration: _The Santa Maria, the Niña and the Pinta_
_The most famous ships that ever sailed the seas_
_The Niña, shown in the foreground, was the smallest of the three, but
in her Columbus returned to Spain after the Santa Maria was wrecked,
and the captain of the Pinta seemed tempted to prove unfaithful._]
SHIPS
OF THE SEVEN SEAS
BY
HAWTHORNE DANIEL
AUTHOR OF
“IN THE FAVOUR OF THE KING”
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT
[Illustration: Decoration]
_DRAWINGS BY_
FRANCIS J. RIGNEY
GARDEN CITY NEW YORK
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
1925
COPYRIGHT, 1925, BY
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES
AT
THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y.
_First Edition_
TO
NELLE R. DANIEL
MY WIFE
WITHOUT WHOSE ENCOURAGEMENT AND
ASSISTANCE THIS BOOK WOULD PROBABLY
HAVE BEEN BEGUN, BUT MOST CERTAINLY
WOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN COMPLETED
FOREWORD
In gathering material for a book of this kind one’s sources of
information are likely to be so numerous and so diverse as to defy
classification. Some of the information I have gotten first hand on
ships in which I have served or voyaged. Much more of it has been
picked up from countless scattered sources during twenty years or
more in which ships have been my hobby. More still, however, has been
consciously taken from books on ships and shipping that I have gathered
together or referred to during the time I spent actually in preparing
the manuscript.
Those books to which I have most often referred, and to the authors and
publishers of which I am particularly indebted, are as follows:
“Ancient and Modern Ships,” by Sir G. C. V. Holmes
“The Clipper Ship Era,” by Arthur H. Clark
“Dictionary of Sea Terms,” by A. Ansted
“Elements of Navigation,” by W. J. Henderson, A. M.
“The Frigate _Constitution_,” by Ira N. Hollis
“Lightships and Lighthouses,” by F. A. Talbot
“The Lookout Man,” by David W. Bone
“Mercantile Marine,” by E. Keble Chatterton
“Modern Seamanship,” by Austin M. Knight
“Sailing Ships and Their Story,” by E. Keble Chatterton
In addition to these I have received much assistance from the New
York Public Library, the American Museum of Natural History, the
Metropolitan Museum of Art, the U. S. Congressional Library, the
Marine Museum at the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, and a
number of friends, who, knowing of my interest in ships, have brought
me some of the most interesting of the facts that I have used.
H. D.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE DEVELOPMENT OF SHIPS 1
II. THE DEVELOPMENT OF SAILS 34
III. THE PERFECTION OF SAILS—THE CLIPPER SHIPS 56
IV. THE DEVELOPMENT OF STEAMSHIPS 75
V. THE PERFECTION OF STEAMSHIPS 96
VI. STEAMSHIPS OF MANY TYPES 117
VII. SHIPS OF WAR 140
VIII. PORTS AND PORT EQUIPMENT 168
IX. THE ART OF SEAMANSHIP 191
X. THE SCIENCE OF NAVIGATION 215
XI. LIGHTHOUSES, LIGHTSHIPS, AND BUOYS 235
XII. SHIP DESIGN, CONSTRUCTION, AND REPAIR 252
XIII. SHIPPING LINES 267
XIV. THE IMPORTANCE OF SHIPS 279
APPENDIX. An Abridged Dictionary of Nautical Words
and Expressions 295
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
The Caravels of Columbus _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
An Egyptian Boat of 6000 B. C. 3
A Large Egyptian Ship of the 18th Dynasty 5
A Peruvian Balsa 7
An African Dugout 9
An Eskimo Umiak 11
An Eskimo Kayak 13
A Birch-bark Canoe 15
An Outrigger Canoe 17
A Phœnician Bireme 19
A Greek Trireme 21
Seating Arrangement of Rowers in a Greek Trireme 25
An early 16th-Century Ship 27
A Mediterranean Galley 31
An Egyptian Boat of the 5th Dynasty 35
An Egyptian Ship of the 12th Dynasty 37
A Roman Ship 39
A Viking Ship 41
A 13th-Century English Ship 43
A Galleon of the Time of Elizabeth 45
The _Amaranthe_ 49
A 16th-Century Dutch Boat 51
A Corvette of 1780 53
A British East Indiaman 57
A Black Ball Packet 59
A Whaling Bark 61
The _Red Jacket_ 63
The _Great Republic_ 65
The _Ariel_, 1866 67
A Gloucester Fisherman 69
An American Coasting Schooner 71
The _Charlotte Dundas_ 77
Robert Fulton’s _Clermont_ 79
The _Savannah_ 81
The _Great Britain_ 83
The _Great Eastern_ 85
The Steamship _Oceanic_ 89
The _Deutschland_ 93
The _Majestic_ 97
The _Leviathan_ 99
The _Berengaria_ 101
The _Mauretania_ 105
The _Belgenland_ 107
The _George Washington_ 111
The _Homeric_ 115
A Mail Liner 119
An American Intermediate Liner 121
A Cargo Liner 123
A Tramp Steamer 125
An Oil Tanker 129
A Turret Steamer 131
A Whaleback 135
A Great Lakes Freight Carrier 137
An English Warship of the Time of Henry V 141
A British Line-of-Battle Ship, 1790 143
The American Frigate _Constitution_ 145
A Steam Frigate—the U. S. S. _Hartford_ 146
The _Monitor_ 147
The _Merrimac_ 149
A Torpedo Boat 151
H. M. S. _Dreadnaught_ 153
A Submarine 155
A Modern Destroyer 157
A Modern Super-dreadnaught 159
A Battle Cruiser 161
A Scout Cruiser 163
An Airplane View of the U. S. S. _Langley_ 165
A Map of the Port of New York 169
A Map of the Port of Liverpool 171
A Map of the Port of Rio de Janeiro 173
A Map of the Port of Cape Town 175
A Map of the Port of Marseilles 177
A Tug Boat 179
A New York Harbour Ferry 181
A New York Harbour Lighter 183
A Mississippi River Stern-wheeler 185
A Modern Venetian Cargo Boat 187
A Page of Knots in Common Use 193
Bearings and Points of Sailing 195
How a Fore-and-Aft Sail Is Reefed 197
A Freighter Tied Up to a Pier 199
A Few Types of Sailing Ships Common in European
and American Waters 201
A Few Types of Sailing Boats to Be Found Around the
World 203
The Rigging of a Three-masted Ship 209
The Sails of a Four-masted Ship 213
Using a Cross Staff 217
Using an Astrolabe 221
A Sextant in Use, and a Ship’s Log 225
Using a Pelorus 229
Sounding by Machine 233
The Pharos at Alexandria 237
The Tillamook Rock Light Station 239
Cape Race Lighthouse 241
Minot’s Ledge Light 243
Bishop Rock Lighthouse 245
Fire Island Lightship 247
Automatic Buoys 249
A Ship on the Ways 253
A Floating Dry Dock 255
The _Olympic_ 259
The _Aquitania_ 263
The _Paris_ 265
The _Spray_ 281
The _Detroit_ 283
A Reconstruction of One of Caligula’s Galleys 284
A European Side-wheeler 285
A Hudson River Steamer 287
A Steam Yacht 289
An Experiment of 1924 291
INTRODUCTION
I remember well being thrilled as a boy by the tales of various members
of my family who had been engaged in the old “China Trade” and in the
operation of clipper ships and in whaling. These stories related to a
bygone age—a day when the American flag was seen in every part of the
globe.
Even in my own boyhood America had no merchant marine except for the
coasting trade and the freighters upon the Great Lakes. American
seamen had ceased to exist and the calling of an officer in the
Merchant Marine was no longer one that offered an attractive career to
the American boy. It is unnecessary here to go into the reasons for
the decline and fall of our nation upon the sea. The Civil War, the
introduction of steam propulsion, the development of the West, and in
addition a great number of economic changes, were some of the causes of
the disappearance of the American flag from the Seven Seas.
It was not until the outbreak of the World War that American business
men as a whole began to think seriously of the possibility of reviving
American shipping; it was not until 1916 that the Congress took
definite action to aid with constructive legislation; it was not until
our own country entered into the war that large results appeared. In
the past few years there has been an extraordinary revival of interest
in everything that pertains to the sea—the novels of Melville written
three quarters of a century ago have been revived in dozens of editions
and the sea stories of Conrad are among the best sellers. In the
same way, old books, old engravings, and crude old lithographs and
woodcuts relating to almost every form of ships and shipping have
been sought out and prized by an ever-growing circle of enthusiasts.
This is not a passing fancy; there is something more solid behind
it. I hope I am right in believing that the people of the United
States are again turning their faces to the sea. Over the sea our
ancestors or we ourselves have all come. We have filled the vacant
spaces from the original colonies on the Atlantic Coast to the new and
splendid civilization of the Pacific. No longer can we say “America
is sufficient for us; our thought and lives must stay at home.” We
are part of the world now, very dependent on the rest of the peoples
of the world for our own progress, and our own success, and even for
our own safety. This is shown by the fact that every school and every
college throughout the land is, in its teaching, paying more and more
attention to the affairs of mankind beyond our own borders. The study
of languages, the study of geography, the study of economics, of
international laws—all receive increased attention.
Mr. Hawthorne Daniel has rendered a conspicuous service in writing a
book which can be understood and appreciated by the average citizen.
Most of us are just “average citizens” and whether we live a thousand
miles from the nearest ocean or not, whether we have ever smelled salt
water or not, it will be a good thing for us to have some knowledge of
the great epic of ships and the men who have made them and sailed them.
FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT.
HYDE PARK, N. Y.,
_June 4, 1924_.
SHIPS
OF THE SEVEN
SEAS
SHIPS
OF THE SEVEN SEAS
CHAPTER I
THE DEVELOPMENT OF SHIPS
Imagine the world without ships. Mighty empires that now exist and have
existed in the past would never have developed. Every continent—every
island—would be a world alone. Europe, Asia, and Africa could have
known each other, it is true, in time. North and South America might
ultimately have become acquainted by means of the narrow isthmus
that joins them. But without ships, Australia and all the islands of
all the seas would still remain unknown to others, each supporting
peoples whose limited opportunities for development would have
prevented advanced civilization. Without ships the world at large
would still be a backward, savage place, brightened here and there
with tiny civilizations, perhaps, but limited in knowledge, limited in
development and in opportunity. Without ships white men could never
have found America. Without ships the British Empire could never have
existed. Holland, Spain, Rome, Carthage, Greece, Phœnicia—none of them
could ever have filled their places in world history without ships.
Without ships the Bosphorus would still be impassable and the threat
of Xerxes to Western civilization would never have been known. Greater
still—far greater—without ships the Christian religion would have
been limited to Palestine or would have worked its way slowly across
the deserts and mountains to the South and East, to impress with its
teachings the Arabs, the Assyrians, the Hindoos, and the Chinese.
Ships have made the modern world—ships have given the white man world
supremacy, and ships, again, have made the English-speaking peoples
the colonizers and the merchants whose manufactures are known in
every land, whose flags are respected all around the globe, and whose
citizens are now the most fortunate of all the people of the earth.
All of this we owe to ships.
* * * * *
Far back before the beginnings of history lived the first sailor.
Who he was we do not know. Where he first found himself water-borne
we cannot even guess. Probably in a thousand different places at a
thousand different times a thousand different savage men found that by
sitting astride floating logs they could ride on the surface of the
water.
In time they learned to bind together logs or reeds and to make
crude rafts on which they could carry themselves and some of their
belongings. They learned to propel these rafts by thrusting poles to
the bottoms of the lakes or rivers on which they floated. They learned,
in time, how to make and how to use paddles, and as prehistoric ages
gave way to later ages groping savages learned to construct rafts
more easily propelled, on which platforms were built, to keep their
belongings up above the wash of the waves that foamed about the logs.
And ultimately some long-forgotten genius hollowed out a log with fire,
perhaps, and crude stone tools, and made himself a heavy, unwieldy
canoe, which, heavy as it was and awkward, could still be handled much
more readily than could the rafts that had served his forbears for
perhaps a hundred centuries.
And with this early step forward in the art of ship-building came a
little of the light that heralded the approaching dawn of civilization.
* * * * *
[Illustration: AN EGYPTIAN BOAT OF 6000 B. C.
_This drawing was made from what is probably the most ancient known
record of a ship. The high bow and stern seem somewhat overdone, and it
is likely that they were less elevated than this picture shows them.
The carving from which this was taken, however, exaggerates them still
more._]
The very first pages of recorded history tell us of ships, and we know
that many prehistoric men were adept at building such boats as dugout
canoes. In Switzerland many signs have been found of a people who dwelt
there in the Stone Age, and among the simple belongings of this people
of great antiquity have been found canoes hollowed from single logs. In
the bogs of Ireland, and in England and Scotland similar dugouts have
been occasionally found, which had been buried in the course of time
far below the surface of the ground.
By the time the Stone Age came the dugout was perfected, and still
later other types of boats appeared. Perhaps the hollowed log suggested
the use of the curved bark of the tree as a canoe, and ultimately a
framework of wood was developed to hold the weight of the occupant
while a covering of bark kept out the water. The framework was
necessary for two reasons—first, to give the structure the necessary
strength to keep its shape; and second, to bear the weight of the
builder and his belongings. Other coverings, such as skins and woven
fabrics covered with pitch, came into use in parts of the world where
suitable bark was scarce.
The next step in the building of boats was a method of fastening pieces
of wood together in suitable form. This probably came from a desire
for boats of larger size, which required greater strength, for man
early became a trader and wished to transport goods. Bark could not
support a heavy hull, and dugouts are necessarily limited in size,
being constructed of the trunks of single trees, although dugouts fifty
or sixty feet in length, or even longer, are not unknown. Probably
the earliest boats of this new type were tied together by thongs or
cords. Even to-day the natives of Madras, in India, build boats by this
method, and similar types are to be found on the Strait of Magellan, on
Lake Victoria Nyanza in Central Africa, and in the East Indies. Many of
these have been very highly developed until now they are built of heavy
hand-hewn boards fitted together with ridges on their inner sides,
through which holes are bored for the thongs that lash them together.
The boards are fastened together first, and later a frame is attached
to the interior. This construction makes a very “elastic” boat which
bends and twists in a seaway, but which, because of this “elasticity,”
is able to navigate waters that would prove fatal to the more rigid
types of crudely constructed boats. The Hindoos often use them in the
heavy surf that drives in upon the beaches from the Bay of Bengal.
[Illustration: A LARGE EGYPTIAN SHIP OF THE 18TH DYNASTY
_The overhanging bow and stern were common on most early Egyptian
ships, and the heavy cable, stretched from one end of the hull to the
other and supported on two crutches, was used to strengthen these
overhanging ends._]
The introduction of this construction made boats of considerable size
possible, and for the first time boats larger than anything that could
possibly be called a canoe were successfully floated.
From this form a further step was ultimately made in which the various
parts were fastened together by the use of wooden pegs, and this was
the most advanced type long centuries after the dawn of history. The
Nile was navigated by such boats at the height of Egypt’s civilization,
and Homer describes this type of boat as the one in which Ulysses
wandered on his long and wearisome journey home.
While the art of boat-building had been travelling this long, slow
way, the art of propulsion had not been idle. Long since, the simple
pole of the early savage had lost its usefulness, for men soon learned
to navigate waters too deep for poles. The paddle followed, and was
perfected to a very high point, as its use in all parts of the world
still testifies.
But further means were still to come, and by the time Ulysses started
on his journey from the fallen city of Troy, both the sail and the oar,
which for three thousand years were to be supreme as propelling forces,
had come into use.
In Ulysses’s boat, therefore, we see for the first time a combination
of structural features and propelling agents that compare, remotely
though it may be, with ships as they are to-day. A built-up structure
with a framework, propelled by sails—it was an early counterpart of the
ships of the present time.
Naturally enough this development did not take place simultaneously
in all parts of the world. The most advanced civilizations such as
those of Phœnicia, Greece, and China developed the most advanced
ship-building methods, just as they developed the most advanced arts
and sciences and thought and religion.
For instance, when Columbus discovered America a vital factor in the
development of ships was entirely unknown to the natives that he found.
No Indian tribe with which he or later explorers came in contact had
learned the use of sails to propel the canoes they almost universally
used. Civilizations of surprising worth, with art and architecture in
high stages of advancement, had existed and had practically disappeared
in Yucatan and Central America, and other civilizations of genuine
attainment were later found, by Cortes and Pizarro, in Mexico and Peru,
yet none of them knew the uses of the sail.
On the other hand, the Egyptians and the Phœnicians used the sail, and
twenty-five centuries before the discovery of America the Phœnicians
are thought to have sailed their ships around the continent of Africa
from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean.
But while the art of ship-building progressed more rapidly after the
development of the use of wooden pegs for fastenings, and the use of
sails and oars made possible more extended sea journeys, still the
development was slow, and until the discovery of the power of steam in
the latter part of the 18th Century no revolutionary changes in ships
took place.
Just when the method originated of first constructing the frame of the
ship and of covering this frame with planks, we do not know, but the
transition from the method in use at the time of Homer was simple and
the change was probably gradual.
[Illustration: A PERUVIAN BALSA
_These “boats” are really rafts made of reeds._]
It seems possible that the built-up boat may have had its origin in
the attempt of some savage to raise the sides of his dugout canoe by
the addition of boards in order to keep the water from harming his
goods.
But all of the history of boats up to the time of written history is
necessarily mostly surmise.
It is interesting to note, however, that every one of these basic
types is still to be found in use. In Australia, for instance, are to
be found savages whose boats are nothing but floating logs, sharpened
at the ends, astride of which the owner sits. Rafts, of course, are
common everywhere. Dugout canoes are to be found in many lands, among
which are the islands of the Pacific and the western coast of Canada
and Alaska. The birch-bark canoe is still common among the Indians of
America—particularly of Canada; the skin-covered boat is still used
commonly by the Eskimos, two types, the kayak, or decked canoe, and the
umiak, or open boat being the most common. I have seen the latter type
used also by the Indians who live on Great Bear Lake in northern Canada.
Boats fastened together with thongs or lashings are numerous in parts
of India and elsewhere, the Madras surfboats being, perhaps, the best
examples.
Boats built up of planks fastened together by pegs are to be found in
many parts of the world. I learned to sail in a boat of this type, but
very much modernized, on Chesapeake Bay. The other methods, very much
perfected, are still in everyday use among boat- and ship-builders.
Thus it will be seen that some knowledge of all these various types may
still serve some useful purpose, for one may find in everyday use all
the fundamental types of construction that have ever existed.
[Illustration: AN AFRICAN DUGOUT
_In this boat the builders have hollowed out the log but have not
otherwise changed it. It is a present-day counterpart of boats known
and used long before the dawn of history._]
One type of boat I have not mentioned, yet it is of time-honoured
ancestry and is still in daily use among thousands of people. This is
the outrigger canoe. In different parts of the world it has different
names. In the Philippines, for instance, it is called, in two of its
forms, _vinta_ and _prau_. These boats have one thing in common, and
that is an outrigger. An outrigger is a pole made of bamboo or some
other light wood, floating in the water at a distance of a few feet
from the boat itself. It is held rigid and parallel to the hull by two
or more cross bars. Sometimes there is an outrigger on each side but
often there is only one. On the smaller boats the outrigger consists
of a single pole. On larger boats, or those which are inclined to be
particularly topheavy because of the load they are intended to carry,
the size of the sail, or for some other cause, several poles may make
up each outrigger. The use of this addition is to secure stability,
for the boats to which they are attached are usually extremely narrow
and alone could not remain upright in the water, or at best could not
carry sail in a seaway, where the combination of wind and wave would
quickly capsize them. These outrigger canoes—and some of them are
capable of carrying forty or fifty passengers—are extremely seaworthy,
and the native sailors do not hesitate to take them for hundreds of
miles across seas often given to heavy storms. In the development of
ships, however, they play no part, for their only unique characteristic
has never been incorporated into ships of higher design.
It is interesting that while all the cruder types of boats are still to
be found in daily use in various parts of the world, the more highly
developed designs, up to those of the 17th Century, have disappeared.
Many of them, it is true, have influenced later designs, but most of
the marks they left can be traced only with great difficulty.
The earliest boats of which we have definite records are those
that were in use in Egypt about 3000 B. C. Some of these were of
considerable size, for carvings on tombs and temples show them carrying
cargoes of cattle and other goods, and show, too, on one side, as many
as twenty-one or twenty-two, and in one case twenty-six, oars, besides
several used for steering. Many of these boats were fitted with a
strange sort of double mast, made, apparently, of two poles fastened
together at the top and spread apart at the bottom. These masts could
be lowered and laid on high supports when they were not needed to carry
sail.
The boats themselves seem to have been straight-sided affairs with both
ends highly raised, ending, sometimes, in a point and sometimes being
carried up into highly decorated designs that at the bow occasionally
curved backward and then forward like a swan’s neck. The end of this
was often a carved head of some beast or bird or Egyptian god. On the
boats intended for use as war galleys the bow was often armed with a
heavy metal ram.
[Illustration: AN ESKIMO UMIAK
_This boat is structurally similar to the kayak except that it has no
deck. It is a larger boat, and will carry heavy loads and perhaps as
many as a dozen people. It is made by covering a frame with skins._]
These ships—for they had by this time grown to such size that they are
more than canoes or boats—often extended far out over the water both
forward and aft, and any concentration of weight on these overhanging
extremities had a tendency to strain the hull amidships. This was
offset, as it sometimes is to-day on shallow draft river boats, by
running cables from bow to stern over crutches set amidships.
While the Egyptians were the first to picture their ships, it is
not certain that they were the first to have ships of real size and
sea-going ability, for the very temples and tombs on the walls of which
are shown the ships that I have described have also the records of
naval victories over raiders from other lands who must have made the
voyage to the Egyptian coast in order to plunder the wealth of that
old centre of civilization.
The Egyptians, however, were never a sea-going people in the sense that
the Phœnicians were. But strange as it may be, the Phœnicians, despite
the fact that they probably invented the alphabet, did not make the
first record, or, as a matter of fact, any very important records, of
their great development in the ship-building art. The earliest picture
of which we know of Phœnician ships is on the wall of an Assyrian
palace and dates back only to about 700 B. C. which was after the
Assyrians had conquered the Phœnicians and had for the first time (for
the Assyrians were an inland people) come in contact with sea-going
ships.
By this time the Phœnicians had had many years of experience on the
sea, and the Assyrian representation shows a ship of more advanced
design than the Egyptians had had.
There are few records, however, from which we can gain much knowledge
of Phœnician ships, although we know they ventured out of the
Mediterranean and were familiar with the coasts of Spain, Portugal,
France, and even England, where they went to secure tin. And as I
mentioned earlier, they may even have circumnavigated Africa, and
it seems likely that they invented the bireme and the trireme, thus
solving the question of more power for propulsion.
A bireme is a boat propelled by oars which has the rowers so arranged
that the oars overlap and form two banks or rows, one above the other.
A trireme is similar except that there are three banks. With this
arrangement a boat may have twice or three times as many rowers (in
these old boats there was never more than one man to an oar) without
lengthening the hull.
To the Greeks we owe the first detailed accounts of the art of
ship-building and of ship construction. In early Greek history the
vessels were small and were usually without decks, although some of
them had decks that extended for part of their length. They carried
crews that ranged up to a hundred or more, and, in the democratic
fashion of the early Greeks, they all took part in the rowing of the
ship, with the possible exception of the commander. At this early
period great seaworthiness had not been developed, and there are
many accounts of the loss of ships in storms and of the difficulty
of navigating past headlands and along rocky coasts. Later, Greek
ships cruised the Mediterranean almost at will, but ship design and
construction had first to develop and the development took centuries.
Even in those days there was a marked difference between the ships
intended for commerce and those intended for war. The war vessels—and
the pirate vessels, which of course were ships of war—were narrow and
swift, while the ships of commerce were broad and slow: broad because
of the merchant’s desire to carry large cargoes, and slow because the
great beam and the heavy burdens prevented speed.
[Illustration: AN ESKIMO KAYAK
_These small canoes are made of a light frame covered with skins._]
During the period at which Athens reached her prime the trireme, or
three-banked ship, was the most popular. As a matter of fact, its
popularity was so great that its name was often given to all ships of
the same general type whether they were designed with two, three, four,
five, or even more banks of oars.
These many-oared ships reached a very high state of perfection during
the supremacy of Greece, and the most careful calculations were made
in order to utilize every available inch by packing the rowers as
closely together as was possible without preventing them from properly
performing their tasks.
The rowers, as I have suggested, sat in tiers, those on each side
usually being all in the same vertical plane, and the benches they
used ran from the inner side of the hull to upright timbers which were
erected between decks, slanting toward the stern. That is, in a ship
with three banks of oars, three seats were attached to each of these
slanting timbers and the footrests of the rower occupying the topmost
seat were on either side of the man who occupied the second seat in the
next group of three. The vertical distance between these seats was two
feet. The horizontal distance was one foot. The distance between seats
in the same bank was three feet.
I have gone into some detail in describing this arrangement, for
rowers—and from the later days of Greece on they were generally slave
rowers—were the motive power of ships for three thousand years or more,
and for more than a thousand years the many-banked ship was supreme.
[Illustration: A BIRCH-BARK CANOE
_In many parts of the world savage people have learned to build light
frames over which they have stretched the best material available to
them. The Indians of North America commonly utilize birch bark._]
Imagine these toiling galley slaves, chained in hundreds to the crowded
rowing benches, straining at the heavy oars. Tossed by the seas, they
labour unceasingly, stroke on stroke, to the sound of a mallet falling
in never-changing cadence on a block of wood. Hour on hour they strain,
heartened occasionally by a few minutes’ rest. Their eyes are all but
blinded by the sweat from their grimy brows. Their hands are calloused,
their bodies misshapen from long toil on the rowers’ benches.
Above them, on the wind-swept deck, they hear the clank of armed
men, the slap of sandalled feet. A lookout calls to the officer in
command—hurried steps—momentary silence—shouts and the sound of feet.
A messenger appears in the stifling space below. The sharp clap of the
mallet on the block increases its cadence. Faster and faster swing the
oars. Furious and more furious is the pace. A whip in the hands of a
brutal guard falls here and there on the naked backs of the helpless,
straining forms. Their strength is waning, their breath is coming
fast. A man collapses from the strain and pitches from his elevated
seat, half suspended by the chain around his leg, his oar trailing and
useless. From beyond their wooden walls they hear the muffled clank of
the oars of the approaching enemy.
Cries from on deck, and suddenly a crash. Broken oars are driven here
and there. Screams and oaths and orders and a great upheaval. Water
enters in a score of places. More screams—more oaths—cries for help to
a score of pagan gods—the water covers all. A great last sigh and one
more ship is gone: it is just a tiny incident in the history of ships.
As I have said, the Greeks developed marine architecture to a very
high point, and the bireme and trireme with which they began were
the first of a long series of developments until ultimately ships of
five, of eight, of even sixteen banks of oars are said to have been in
use, and there is a story, which probably was a figment of someone’s
imagination, of a vessel of forty banks! Such a ship may possibly have
been suggested—may conceivably have been built—but it seems certain
that she could never have been successful or practical.
Carthage, that great enemy of Rome, was a city of traders—a city that
depended on the sea for its wealth and, to a large extent, even for
its sustenance. Rome, on the other hand, grew to considerable size
without venturing on the sea. When she did first turn her attention to
the water, as her continued expansion forced her to do, she found that
Carthage crossed her course whichever way she turned. The result was
war.
But war between two cities separated by the width of the Mediterranean
had to be fought largely on the sea, and Rome, inexperienced as a
sea-going nation, was put to a severe test.
By chance, however, a Carthaginian quinquireme—that is, a five-banked
ship—battered by storm and abandoned by her crew, drifted ashore on
the sunny coast of Italy, and the Romans, quick to see the importance
of the happening, hauled her high and dry, measured her, and learned
from her battered hull the lessons they needed to know of ship
construction.
[Illustration: AN OUTRIGGER CANOE
_Sometimes these canoes have an outrigger on each side, and sometimes
they carry sails._]
They built on dry land sets of rowers’ seats, and while they taught
rowers to pull their oars in unison in these unique training benches,
they set to work with the energy that marked Rome out for great
success. Sixty days after they had felled the trees, they had a fleet
of quinquiremes afloat and manned.
Promptly they turned the prows of this new fleet toward the
Carthaginians—and were defeated.
But with the indomitable will that characterized the Romans for two
thousand years, they went to work again, and built a new fleet and a
more powerful one. This time some inventive Roman devised a kind of
hinged gangplank, which could be dropped upon the deck of an enemy
ship, maintaining its hold by a heavy metal barb which would penetrate
the decks. Across this bridge the Roman soldiers could rush, and by
this means could turn a naval battle into what was very nearly the same
to these land-trained soldiers as a battle on dry land, where hard
blows with sword and spear determined the result.
With this new apparatus the Romans, under Duilius, in 260 B. C., gained
a victory at Mylæ, off the coast of Sicily, and after three wars,
covering, with intervals between, 118 years, drove the Carthaginians
from the sea and razed their beautiful city to the ground.
It is not my purpose, in this chapter, to go into great detail in
telling of the development of ships from this time on, for the designs
were infinitely great, the variations numerous, and there were,
until the 19th Century, but two vital improvements—the compass and
a considerable improvement in the ability of sailing ships to make
headway against the wind.
Rome, during most of the centuries of her supremacy, controlled every
sea within her reach. The Mediterranean was entirely hers, and her
galleys and her soldiers ventured into the Atlantic and visited parts
of the world that seemed to stay-at-home Romans to be the very fringes
of the earth. The ships they built grew in size: the corn-ships, which
brought food to the capital from Egypt, are thought to have been as
much as 200 feet long, 45 feet broad, and 43 feet deep. When St. Paul
was shipwrecked he was in company with 276 others, and the ship they
were on carried a cargo besides. These ships carried three masts, each
having huge square sails, and on one mast was spread a square topsail
as well.
Roman ships that voyaged to Britain probably gave to the wild men of
the North—including those who later became the Vikings—the idea of the
sail, and probably all the people of northern Europe learned the use of
sails, directly or indirectly, from the Romans.
Ultimately Rome fell beneath the onslaughts of the Barbarians, and the
Mediterranean seat of power (although still called the Roman Empire)
moved to Byzantium, now called Constantinople.
Here Western civilization resisted for centuries the attacks of the
Mohammedans, until the great city on the Bosphorus fell before the
armies of Mohammed in 1453.
[Illustration: A PHŒNICIAN BIREME
_Despite the fact that the Phœnicians did more with ships than any
other ancient peoples before the Greeks and Romans, little is known of
Phœnician ships. They developed the bireme, an oar- and sail-driven
ship with two “banks” of oars, and circumnavigated Africa._
]
During all of the centuries that Constantinople had been holding out
against the growing power of the Mohammedans, the west and north of
Europe were being remade. For a time Western civilization seemed
doomed, for the Moorish Empire in North Africa had pushed across
the Strait of Gibraltar, had subjugated Spain, and had crossed the
Pyrenees into France, where, fortunately, their great army was put
to rout at the battle of Tours in 732. But although they were driven
from France they maintained their hold upon Spain, and not until the
Granada Moors were defeated by Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492 was
Spain again free of them. They controlled North Africa from Suez to
Gibraltar and introduced many Eastern ideas. It is probable that the
lateen sail, which originated in Egypt and is still in common use in
the Mediterranean, owes at least some credit to the Moors for its
introduction to western Europe.
In addition to the influx of Mohammedans, civilized Europe had to
contend with the hordes of barbarians that descended from the wild
country to the north of the Alps, for the most of Europe except its
Mediterranean fringe was a dark and barbarous land. But the centuries
that we call the Middle Ages saw a growth of culture, a growth of
learning, a growth of nationalism that were to make the modern world.
In all of this ships played a vital part.
The Vikings, with their open boats, propelled by oars and sometimes
aided by great square sails, terrorized Britain and northern Europe for
a time, even driving their boats up the Seine to the walls of the city
of Paris, which was then built on a tiny island in the river. But at
last the Saxons, under Alfred the Great, with the first ships of the
long series of ships that were built to protect England, drove the wild
sailor warriors away, and a new epoch had begun.
During this time Venice and Genoa had developed, and the ships that
sailed from those two cities were for a time the proudest of the world.
But their development was so largely commercial that it was only with
difficulty that they could maintain navies capable of protecting their
vast fleets, which were attacked by pirates, by the ships of other
cities, and by each other so constantly that sea-going was a hazardous
occupation, and ships perforce sailed always in convoys, or at least in
the company of other ships, for protection. Then in the north William
the Conqueror crossed the English Channel, defeated the Saxons at the
Battle of Hastings in 1066, and the foundations for the present British
Empire were laid. If the Saxons had developed a navy with which they
could have met and defeated the Norman conqueror on the sea, think of
the enormous difference it would have made in the history of Britain.
[Illustration: A GREEK TRIREME
_These warships were about 120 feet in length, and the sails and spars
were taken down and sent ashore if battle was expected. The oars were
operated by slaves._]
During the Middle Ages following the conquest of Britain, an
association of northern European cities, called the Hanseatic League,
was formed in order to protect their trade, and for a time proved to
be a very important factor in the maritime development of the north
of Europe. Had Venice and Genoa formed such a coöperative association
instead of frittering away their strength, bickering and fighting,
another story would have been written in the Mediterranean.
During all this time ships had been changing gradually in design. Oars
still drove the fastest ships of war in the Mediterranean, but sails
had taken a more important place, and now whole voyages were made by
means of sails alone.
The 15th Century came, and with it the fall of Constantinople; and with
it, too, in Genoa, that nautical city of Italy, the birth of a child
named Christopher Columbus. He grew to manhood and became a sailor, and
sailed on voyages here and there, and was wrecked finally on the coast
of Portugal. But here was no ordinary man. Thousands of other sailors
had had his opportunities, but none of them took so seriously the idea
that the world was round. The idea, of course, was not Columbus’s
own. It had received some attention for centuries among a few great
minds. But Columbus, not content with accepting the shape of the world
as a theory, wanted to make the voyage that would prove it. Already,
in the previous century, a great stride had been made in seamanship
by the introduction of the compass. This appeared mysteriously in
Mediterranean waters, from no definitely known direction, but it seems
probable that it came, by a very indirect route, from China, where it
had been known and used for many years. Probably this introduction of
the compass to the Western world was made by the Mohammedans, for they
traded as far east as the Persian Gulf—perhaps farther—and natives
of India, with whom the Chinese came into occasional contact, often
made the voyage from India to Muscat, so that it seems likely that the
compass came to Europe by this route.
But to return to Columbus. He took his idea to the King of Portugal,
and was turned away. From Portugal the penniless sailor turned to
Spain, and many times was refused by the monarchs of that country,
for they were busy at the time with the final expulsion of the Moors.
After several years of unsuccessful petitioning at the Spanish Court,
Columbus gave up and started on his weary way to France. But Queen
Isabella sent a messenger after him, and he was recalled and told that
he could make the attempt to discover the westward route to India with
the aid and under the flag of Spain.
On August 3, 1492, he sailed from Palos in command of three little
ships—three ships that are now more famous than any others that ever
sailed the seas; and with these ships—the _Santa Maria_, the _Niña_,
and the _Pinta_—he discovered a new world and opened new seas that
now are crossed and recrossed constantly by such a fleet of ships as
Columbus could never have imagined.
By the end of the 15th Century, as I have suggested, ships had gone
through a series of developments that had made them more seaworthy
and more reliable, but still, from the viewpoint of to-day, they were
crude and inefficient craft in which the modern sailor would hesitate
to venture on the smoothest of summer seas. The ships of war, so far as
the Mediterranean was concerned, still favoured the oar, and still used
sails as auxiliary power, although England and France, and the other
newer nations of the north of Europe, were developing sturdy ships
that depended almost solely upon sails, although they often carried
great overgrown oars called sweeps, with which the ships could be moved
slowly in the absence of the wind.
The galleys of the Mediterranean were no longer the many-banked ships
of Greece and Rome, but were, instead, low, narrow vessels with
huge oars from thirty to fifty feet long, to each of which several
men were assigned, thus securing the man power that the many-banked
ships had utilized with more numerous oars. In order to manage these
ungainly oars a framework was built out from each side of the ship,
and attached to this framework were the oarlocks. This arrangement
has its present-day counterpart in racing shells which, being barely
wide enough for the rowers, cannot balance its oars in locks attached
directly to its sides. Therefore a framework of steel rods is built
opposite each seat in order that the oarlock may be at such a distance
from the rower that he may get the necessary leverage to make each
stroke effective.
The Crusades, which began in the 12th Century, had acquainted western
Europe with many luxuries of the East hitherto unknown to the rougher
people of the West, and as a result, trade increased greatly,
necessitating the building of many ships, and as is always the case,
progress was made because new minds were put to work. In this case
ships improved. Metal nails, expensive as they were, for they were
made, of course, by hand, had come into use, and new designs took the
place of old.
The ship that, at the time of Columbus, was the most popular was the
caravel. To our eyes she was ungainly, crude, and unseaworthy, yet
these clumsy vessels, with their high sterns and overhanging bows, made
most of the early voyages of discovery—voyages that for romance, for
adventure, for danger, and for importance, rank higher than any others
that were ever made.
Two of Columbus’s three ships were caravels. The _Niña_, however, was
but a tiny cockleshell, only partially decked, that proved, by chance,
the most valuable of the three, for in her Columbus was forced by
circumstances to return to Spain after the _Santa Maria_ had been
wrecked by a careless helmsman on a far-off island in the world that
she had found, and the _Pinta_ had wandered away, the Discoverer knew
not where, in the hands of men tempted to be unfaithful to their great
commander.
[Illustration: SEATING ARRANGEMENT OF ROWERS IN A GREEK TRIREME
_While there were other arrangements that were sometimes used, this
seems to have been much the most common. The slaves who operated the
oars were chained in place, and in case of shipwreck or disaster were
usually left to their fate._]
So important was the work done by the _Santa Maria_ and the other
caravels of her day that were sailed by Vasco da Gama around the Cape
of Good Hope, by Americus Vespucius to the South American mainland,
by the Cabots to Nova Scotia and New England, and by other great
discoverers on other great voyages, that they warrant closer attention
than has been given to other passing types. With a fleet of caravels
Magellan sailed from Spain, crossed the Atlantic, skirted the South
American coast, discovered the land we now call Argentina, where he
found a people he named the “Patagonians” because they had big feet. In
subsequent accounts by a member of his crew these people were said to
be giants, although they are merely men of good height and strength.
From Patagonia, Magellan sailed south and entered a channel on each
side of which lay mighty mountains rising precipitately from the water.
The land to the south he named Tierra del Fuego—the Land of Fire—either
because of the glow of now extinct volcanic fires that he saw, or of
distant camp-fires of the natives which he sighted as he made the
passage, and this land for many years was supposed to be a great
continent that stretched from the Strait of Magellan, as the passage
Magellan found was later called, to the south polar regions.
From the western end of the Strait, Magellan steered to the north and
west, diagonally across the greatest expanse of water on the globe—an
ocean discovered only a few years earlier by Balboa when he crossed the
Isthmus of Panama, and named by him the Great South Sea, but renamed by
Magellan, because of the gentle weather he encountered, the Pacific.
In all the voyage across the Pacific he discovered but two islands,
although he sailed through the section occupied by the numerous
archipelagoes that we call the South Sea Islands.
[Illustration: AN EARLY 16TH-CENTURY SHIP
_This ship, while similar in many respects to Columbus’s_ Santa Maria,
_has made some advances over that famous vessel. The foremast is
fitted to carry a topsail in addition to the large foresail shown set
in this picture. On ships somewhat later than this one a small spar
was sometimes erected perpendicularly at the end of the bowsprit, and
a sprit topsail was set above the spritsail which is shown below the
bowsprit here._
]
After terrible suffering from scurvy, from lack of water, almost from
starvation, the little fleet of four ships (one had deserted just after
the Pacific was reached) finally reached the Philippines. Already
Magellan had sailed under the Portuguese flag around the Cape of Good
Hope to a point in the East Indies farther east than the Philippines,
so he was, actually, the first man ever to circumnavigate the globe.
In the Philippines, however, he was inveigled into an alliance with a
perfidious chief named Cebu, who, after witnessing Magellan’s death at
the hands of the natives of a neighbouring island (he was pierced in
the back by a spear), captured and murdered two of Magellan’s chief
officers, after which the dwindling band of adventurers burned one
of their ships, for they were short-handed, and sailed to the south
and west with the remaining three. Two more ships were lost ere the
Atlantic was again reached, and at last the _Vittoria_, the only ship
remaining of the original five, reached the Canaries, where thirteen
men out of the forty-four who still remained were thrown into prison
by the Portuguese governor, and only thirty-one of the original
two hundred and eighty returned to Spain to tell their wondering
countrymen the story of their travels. That voyage, saving only the
first voyage made by Columbus, was the greatest in the history of men
upon the sea.
These voyages, as I have said, were mostly made in caravels. None of
the ships was large, and Columbus’s flagship, the _Santa Maria_, was
below rather than above the average. Vasco da Gama’s ships were larger,
as were many others. But no other ship in history is so widely known
as that little vessel of Columbus’s, and a description of her, being a
description of caravels in general, is of double interest.
From bow to stern she measured but ninety feet, and she displaced about
one hundred tons. But more than that is needed to give one an adequate
idea of her limitations. The bow was high and awkwardly overhung the
water by twelve feet, not being carried gradually out as are the bows
of sailing ships to-day, but jutting ponderously forward from an almost
vertical stem. Amidships the deck was low, dropping down abruptly
about one fourth of the way aft. This midship deck (it was called the
waist) was unbroken for another fourth of the vessel’s length, and then
another deck was built at about the level of the forward deck, behind
which a high sterncastle reared itself aloft until it surpassed the
altitude of the forward deck, but fortunately did not jut out over the
water aft as the bow did forward.
These two raised sections at the opposite ends of the ship were
originally built with the idea of defense in mind. Ships for many
centuries had had raised platforms fore and aft, on which the men who
defended them could congregate in order to rain their arrows upon the
decks of enemy ships. So useful were these “castles” that often enemy
boarders were able to penetrate to the waist only to be driven off by
the rain of missiles on their heads. When gunpowder came into general
use tiny cannon were mounted in swivels attached to the bulwarks of
these “castles,” but old ideas were not easily got rid of, and for a
long time ships continued to be built with raised bows and sterns.
So it was that the _Santa Maria_ had her forecastle and her
sterncastle. The former term is still in use on ships, and signifies
the quarters of the crew, which still are often placed in the bows of
ships. The sterncastle has no present-day counterpart, and the name,
too, has long since disappeared from ships.
The cabin of the great Admiral was aft, in the topmost section of the
sterncastle and was, from our point of view, not exactly palatial. It
had a bed, which looked more like a chest except that it had highly
raised head and foot boards of carved wood. There was a table, and
there was little else. A door opened on to the high narrow deck, and
windows (ports such as ships now use were not then thought of) opened
in the narrow stern high above the water.
The crews’ quarters were almost non-existent. Generally they slept on
deck, although there was room between decks for some of them. This
space, however, was not ventilated (that, of course, had little effect
on a 15th-Century Spaniard. Even the Spaniards of the lower classes
to-day seem somewhat averse to ventilation) and was devoted to cargo
and supplies. Below this space was the “bilge” which was filled with
stone for ballast. The raised forward deck was in reality just a
platform that incidentally formed a roof over the forward section of
the main deck—the deck, that is, that formed the waist—and beneath this
forecastle deck were protected spots where the crew could secure some
shelter from the weather. They cooked, when they cooked at all, on a
box of small stones that sat on the main deck just under the edge of
the raised forecastle. This crude fireplace was decorated by a large
square plate of zinc that stood upright, attached to one side of the
box, to serve as a windbreak.
Below, swishing around among the stone that formed the ballast, was the
ever-present bilge water that was always a serious problem in these
ill-built hulls. It was a never-ending annoyance, even in fair weather,
and had constantly to be pumped out or bailed out. And when these
ungainly craft met with heavy weather their situation was serious, for
the strains caused by the waves opened seams here and there, and often
allowed so much water to enter that foundering resulted. Even when
Spain, ninety years after Columbus, sent her vast Armada to threaten
England, only to have it defeated by Drake and his companions, and
scattered by the North Atlantic storms after it had rounded Scotland
in its attempt to return to Spain, ship after ship, tossed by the
boisterous seas, twisted and groaned and opened her seams, and sank in
the cold black water or drove head on to the rocky coast of Ireland.
The great storm they encountered sank twenty times as many ships as did
the fleet that so ably defended England.
And in such ships as these the hardy men of bygone times searched
out the unknown lands of earth, braved the storms of great uncharted
seas, braved, too, the unknown dangers which, exaggerated by their
imaginations, grew to such size as might have made the bravest quail.
And when their ships were dashed to wreckage on some uncharted rock, or
filled with water when their seams were spread, those who saved their
lives and managed to return to port, shipped again and faced the same
threatening dangers.
In the adventurous days that followed Columbus, ship design and ship
construction developed rapidly. The desire to carry heavy guns led to
placing them on the main deck where they fired over the low bulwarks or
wales which since then have been called gunwales. Then the desire to
carry more guns led to placing them between decks where ports were cut
in the sides of the ship for them to fire through. The British and the
French led in both design and construction, the British having built
ships of 1,000 tons as early as the reign of Henry V in 1413. But so
far as size was concerned, other nations followed suit, and when Medina
Sedonia came driving up the English Channel with the 132 ships of the
Spanish Armada stretched in its vast crescent, at least one ship was of
1,300 tons.
[Illustration: A MEDITERRANEAN GALLEY
_This ship is of the type used long after the Middle Ages. Several men
pulled each oar and all the oars were in one bank._]
But the oaken fleet of England, while it had no ship quite to equal
in size this giant Spaniard, was more than a match for the Don, and
Drake, that master of seamanship, refused to drive alongside the clumsy
Spaniards, but lay off, instead, and peppered them with gunfire, and
following them up the English Channel, fell upon those that dropped
behind.
The opening of the Americas and the East to trade and colonization
resulted in an expansion of ship-building such as the world had never
before known, an opportunity of which an oar-driven ship could never
have taken advantage.
Portugal, for a time—owing to her many colonial possessions, which
now have largely faded away—became a great sea power, which, however,
shortly suffered eclipse. Spain, despite the terrible catastrophe
that befell her great Armada, remained a power of real strength for a
century longer. The Dutch, those hardy sailors from the low countries,
for many a year sailed to and from their East Indian possessions,
proudly conscious of the fact that they were supreme upon the seas. And
the French, although their strength at sea was never clearly supreme,
nevertheless built navies and sailed ships second to none, or at the
least, to none but Britain.
But one by one these sovereigns of the seas gave up the place to
another, and the 18th Century saw a new ruler of the waves, when Great
Britain at last bested Napoleonic France at the Nile, at Aboukir, and
at Trafalgar.
By this time ships had grown greatly in size, and by the opening of the
19th Century the great three-decked line-of-battle ships were more than
200 feet in length, were 55 feet broad, and displaced 3,000 tons or
more. Such a ship could not be termed small even in the light of ships
of a century later.
But the opening years of the 19th Century brought forward an invention
which, laughed at and disdained by “wind-jammers” for half a century,
proved, at last, despite their jeers, the force that swept from the sea
all but a handful of the proud vessels that for nearly five thousand
years had spread their sails to the winds of Heaven and had gone to
the uttermost parts of the earth.
A hundred years after the _Charlotte Dundas_ had churned the waters
of the Forth and Clyde Canal and the _Clermont_ had splashed with her
paddle-wheels the waters of the Hudson, sailing ships had become rare,
romantic links to connect the modern world with that adventurous period
that lay before the era of invention and machinery.
With slow steps the 19th Century ushered in the recognition of the
power of steam—a new departure in the history of the world. But ere
five score years had passed, the wheels of factories whirred in
deafening array, electric motors whined with endless energy, and
huge propellers, spiralling through the deep green sea, drove great
ocean-going palaces from continent to continent, careless of winter’s
winds or summer’s sultry calms, all but thoughtless of the powers of
nature which, since the dawn of history, had been the ruling thought of
all of those who have ventured on the surface of the deep.