THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE MARINE INSTINCT
But when we come to the Phœnicians we are in touch with a veritable
race of seamen who to the south are in just the same relation as the
Vikings are to the north. Whether they took to the sea because they
longed to become great merchants, or whether they were seamen first and
employed their daring to commercial benefit needs no discussion. They
had the true vocation for the sea, and it was inevitable that sooner or
later they must become mighty explorers and traders.
They had the real ship-love, which is the foundation of all true
seamanship; they were in sympathy with the life and work, and they
knew how to build a ship well. They furnished themselves with the
finest timber from Lebanon and surpassed the Egyptian inland sailors by
making their craft stronger, longer, more seaworthy, and more able to
endure the long, daring voyages which it delighted the Phœnicians to
undertake. Similarly, their crews were better trained to sea-work, were
more daring and skilful than the Nile-dwellers. They minded not to sail
out of sight of land, nor lay-to for the darkness to pass away. They
were wont to sail the open sea fearlessly direct from Tyre or Sidon to
Cyprus, and thence to the promontories of Lycia and Rhodes, and so from
island to island to the lands of the Acheans, the Daneans, and further
yet to Hesperia. How did they do it? What were their means and methods
for navigation?
The answer is simply made. They observed the position of the sun
by day. They would watch when the sun rose, when it became south,
when it set, and then by night there was the Great Bear by which to
steer. Their ships they designated “sea-horses,” and the expression
is significant as denoting strength, speed, and reliability. By their
distant voyages the Phœnicians began to open out the world, and they
contributed to geographical knowledge more than all the Egyptian
dynasties put together had ever yielded under this category. Their
earliest craft were little more than mere open boats which were
partially decked. Made of fir or cedar cut into planks, which were
fashioned into craft all too soon before the wood had sufficient time
to become seasoned, they were caulked probably with bitumen, a poor
substitute for vegetable tar. We know from existing illustrations that
the Egyptian influence as to design was obvious in their ships. We
know also that the thirty or more oarsmen sat not paddling, but rowing
facing aft, and that they used the boomless squaresail and shortened
sail by means of brails.
“The first considerable improvement in shipbuilding which can be
confidently ascribed to the Phœnicians,” says Professor Rawlinson,[1]
“is the construction of biremes. Phœnician biremes are represented
in the Assyrian sculptures as early as the time of Sennacherib (700
B.C.), and had probably then been in use for some considerable period.
They were at first comparatively short vessels, but seem to have been
decked, the rowers working in the hold. They sat at two elevations,
one above the other, and worked their oars through holes in the
vessel’s side. It was in frail barks of this description, not much
better than open boats in the earlier period, that the mariners of
Phœnicia, and especially those of Sidon, as far back as the thirteenth
or fourteenth century before our era, affronted the perils of the
Mediterranean.”
At first the Phœnicians confined their voyages to the limits of the
western end of the Mediterranean, but even then, notwithstanding their
superiority in seamanship and navigation, they suffered many a disaster
at sea. Three hundred ships were lost in a storm off Mt. Athos when
they first attempted to invade Greece. And on their second attempt
six hundred more ships were lost off Magnesia and Eubœa. In addition
to this, it must be presumed that the rocks and shoals of the Ægean
Sea, the cruel coasts of Greece, Spain, Italy, Crete, and Asia Minor
would account for a good many more losses of ships and men. In those
days, too, when one ship on meeting another used to ask in perfect
candour if the latter were a pirate, and received an equally candid
answer, there was thus a further risk to be undergone by all who used
the sea for their living. If the ship were in fact piratical and her
commander considered himself the stronger of the two, his crew would
waste little time, but promptly board the other ship, confiscate her
cargo, bind the seamen and sell them off at the nearest slave market.
And be it remembered that a Phœnician ship, inasmuch as she was usually
full of goods recently purchased or about to be sold, was something
worth capturing. Her cargo of rich merchandise was deserving of a keen
struggle and the loss of a number of men.
Nor were the Phœnicians averse from reckoning slaves among their
commodities for barter; indeed, this was a great and important feature
of their trade. Away they went roaming the untracked seas with their
powerful oarsmen and single squaresail and their hulls well filled
with valuable commodities, “freighting their vessels,” as Herodotus
relates, “with the wares of Egypt and Assyria” for the Greek consumer.
Year after year the ships sailed forth from Tyre to traverse the whole
length of the Mediterranean and out into the Atlantic northwards to
the British Isles, through storm and tempest, to embark the cargoes of
tin. To be able to perform such a voyage not once but time after time
is sufficient proof of the seamanship and navigation of the crews no
less than of the seaworthiness of the Phœnician craft. Even that most
wonderful circumnavigation of Africa by the Phœnicians as given by
Herodotus is regarded by Grote, Rawlinson, and other authorities as
having actually occurred and being not a mere figment of imagination.
The story may be briefly summed up thus. Neco, King of Egypt, was
anxious to have a means of connecting the Red Sea and Mediterranean
by water, but had failed in his efforts to make a canal between the
Nile and the Gulf of Suez, so he resolved that the circumnavigation
of Africa should be attempted. For this he needed the world’s finest
seamen and navigators with the best ocean-going ships available.
Accordingly he chose the Phœnicians, who, departing from a Red Sea
port, coasted round Africa, and after nearly three years arrived safely
back in Egypt. The obvious question which the reader will ask is how
could such craft possibly carry enough food for three years. The answer
is that they did not even attempt such a feat. Instead, they used to
make some harbour after part of their voyage was accomplished, land,
sow their grain, wait till harvest-time, and then sail off with their
food on board all ready for a further instalment of the journey.
And there is really nothing too wonderful in this long voyage when
we remember that in Africa what is to-day called Indian corn can be
reaped six weeks after being sown; and that three years is not such
an excessively long time for a well-manned craft fitted with mast and
squaresail to coast from headland to headland, across all the bays and
bights of the African continent. A great achievement it certainly was,
not to be attempted (unless history is woefully silent) again until
towards the close of the fifteenth century, when Vasco da Gama doubled
the Cape of Good Hope.
They had for years been wont in the Mediterranean to make voyages by
night. They had steered their course by aid of the Polar star. “They
undoubtedly,” remarks Professor Rawlinson, “from an ancient date
made themselves charts of the seas which they frequented, calculated
distances, and laid down the relative position of place to place.
Strabo says that the Sidonians especially cultivated the arts of
astronomy and arithmetic as being necessary for reckoning a ship’s
course, and particularly needed in sailing by night.” Later on we
shall again call attention to the great surprise which confronted the
dwellers by the Mediterranean when they voyaged into other seas. The
Phœnicians, so long as they cruised only in the former, had no tide
to contend with; but when they set forth into the Red Sea, the Indian
Ocean, the Atlantic, and the English Channel, they found a factor
which, hitherto, they had not been compelled to encounter. But by such
a seafaring race it was not long before even this new consideration
was dealt with and utilised in the proper manner. “They noted,” says
Rawlinson, “the occurrence of spring and neap tides, and were aware of
the connection with the position of the sun and moon relatively to the
earth, but they made the mistake of supposing that the spring tides
were highest at the summer solstice, whereas they are really highest
in December.”
If we omit the Egyptians from our category as being almost exclusively
inland navigators, we must regard these Phœnicians as historically the
first great seamen of the world, and it is nothing short of remarkable
that in an age such as theirs, when there were so few accessories to
encourage and develop the marine instinct, they should have essayed
so much and succeeded so magnificently in their projects. Remember,
too, that they had something of the instinct of the engineer as well
as of the seaman in their nature. It was the Phœnicians whom Xerxes
employed in 485 B.C. for the purpose of cutting a ship canal through
the isthmus which joins Mt. Athos to the mainland. It was they, also,
who constructed a double bridge of boats across the Hellespont to form
the basis of a solid causeway, and in each of these undertakings they
covered themselves with distinction.
They were no amateurs, no mere experimenters. It is certain that,
in their own time, they were, even with their primitive ships, very
far from primitive in their ideas of seamanship. Read the following
exceedingly interesting account of one who went aboard a Phœnician
vessel and has left to posterity his impressions of his visit. The
descriptive narrative reads so true and seems so perfectly spontaneous
and natural that we almost forget the many centuries which have elapsed
since it was set down. Here, then, you have the record of no less a
person than Xenophon, a man who was far too discriminating to allow
any flow of careless words, far too observant, also, to allow anything
worth noting to escape his watchful eye. In “The Economist” he makes
one of his characters refer to a Phœnician trireme, and he is speaking
of that nation’s ships when the Phœnicians were under the Persian
system:--
“Or[2] picture a trireme, crammed choke-ful of mariners; for what
reason is she so terror-striking an object to her enemies, and a sight
so gladsome to the eyes of friends? Is it not that the gallant ship
sails so swiftly? And why is it that, for all their crowding, the
ship’s company cause each other no distress? Simply that there, as you
see them, they sit in order; in order bend to the oar; in order recover
the stroke; in order step on board; in order disembark.”
And again:--
“I must tell you, Socrates, what strikes me as the finest and most
accurate arrangement of goods and furniture it was ever my fortune to
set eyes on, when I went as a sightseer on board the great Phœnician
merchantman and beheld an endless quantity of goods and gear of all
sorts, all separately packed and stowed away within the smallest
compass. I need scarce remind you (he said, continuing his narrative)
what a vast amount of wooden spars and cables a ship depends on in
order to get to moorings; or again, in putting out to sea: you know
the host of sails and cordage, rigging as they call it, she requires
for sailing; the quantity of engines and machinery of all sorts she
is armed with in case she should encounter any hostile craft; the
infinitude of arms she carries, with her crew of fighting men aboard.
Then all the vessels and utensils, such as people use at home on land,
required for the different messes, form a portion of the freight; and
besides all this, the hold is heavy laden with a mass of merchandise,
the cargo proper, which the master carries with him for the sake of
traffic. Well, all these different things that I have named lay packed
there in a space but little larger than a fair-sized dining-room.
The several sorts, moreover, as I noticed, lay so well arranged,
there could be no entanglement of one with other, nor were searchers
needed; and if all were snugly stowed, all were alike get-at-able,
much to the avoidance of delay if anything were wanted on the instant.
Then the pilot’s mate--the look-out man at the prow, to give him his
proper title--was, I found, so well acquainted with the place for
everything that, even off the ship, he could tell you where each set
of things was laid and how many there were of each, just as well as
anyone who knows his alphabet could tell you how many letters there are
in Socrates, and the order in which they stand. I saw this same man
(continued Ischomachus) examining at leisure everything which could
possibly be needful for the service of the ship. His inspection caused
me such surprise, I asked him what he was doing, whereupon he answered,
‘I am looking to see, stranger, in case anything should happen, how
everything is arranged in the ship, and whether anything is wanting or
not lying handy and shipshape. There is no time left, you know, when
God makes a tempest in the great deep, to set about searching for what
you want or to be giving out anything which is not snug and shipshape
in its place.’”
There was something, then, so excellent in arrangement in these
Phœnician ships which seemed to Xenophon so superior to the vessels
of his own countrymen; and the sailor-like neatness and systematic
order were to him so striking that even to his disciplined and orderly
mind they were most remarkable. It requires but little imagination to
picture from this scant reference the ship’s company doing everything
according to drill. The seaman-like care for the running gear on the
part of the ship’s husband ready for any emergency is, indeed, highly
suggestive.
The importance of the Phœnicians is considerable, not merely for their
own sake, but because of their permanent influence on the Greeks.
But the latter were rather fighters than explorers as compared with
the Phœnicians. At a very early date there was the sea communication
between the Mediterranean and the North, and we may date this certainly
as far back as the year 2000 B.C., suggests Dr. Nansen, himself an
explorer and student of the early voyagers. The only places, excluding
China, whence tin-ore was known to be procurable in ancient times,
he asserts, were North-West Spain, Cornwall, and probably Brittany.
It is significant that in the oldest pyramid-graves of Egypt tin is
found, and the inference is that the inhabitants of the Mediterranean
from at least this epoch voyaged north to fetch this commodity from
Western Europe. And with the tin came also supplies of amber as well.
Archæological finds, affirms the same authority, prove that as far
back as the Scandinavian Bronze Age, or prior to this, there must have
been some sort of communication between the Mediterranean and northern
lands. One of the earliest trade routes connecting the Mediterranean
and the Baltic was from the Black Sea up the Dneiper, then along its
tributary the Bug to the Vistula, and down the latter to the coast. By
their sea-voyages to distant lands the Phœnicians contributed for the
first time a great deal of geographical knowledge of the world, and
in many ways influenced Greek geography. Up till then the learned men
who applied themselves to such subjects had but the vaguest idea of
the North. But just as in subsequent centuries the Spanish kept their
explored regions to themselves and continued most cautious lest other
nationalities should learn their sources of wealth, so the Phœnicians
did their best to keep their trade routes secret lest their rivals,
the Greeks, should step in and enrich themselves. In the absence,
therefore, of anything sufficiently definite, there was for a long
period a good deal of wild and inaccurate speculation.
But it is when we come to Pytheas of Massilia that we reach the
border-line which separates fact from fable. This eminent astronomer
and geographer of Marseilles brought together a knowledge of northern
countries which was based not on premonition, not on speculation, not
on hearsay, but on actual experience. So original, so accurate, and
so far-reaching was his work, that for the next fifteen hundred years
he dominated all geographical knowledge. We can fix his time if we
remember that he flourished probably about the year 330 B.C. He was
the first person in history to introduce astronomical measurements for
ascertaining the geographical situation of a place, and thus became the
founder of the science of navigation--the science which has enabled
seas to be crossed in safety and continents to be discovered; which has
given to the ship of all species a freedom to employ her speed without
sacrificing safety. Indirectly arising from these may be traced the
development and civilising and peopling of the world which have so
entirely modified history.
By means of a great gnomon, Pytheas determined “with surprising
accuracy” the latitude of Marseilles, and in relation to this laid
down the latitude of more northerly places. He observed that the Pole
of the heavens did not coincide, as the earlier astronomer Eudoxus
had supposed, with any star. What Pytheas did find was that it made
an almost regular rectangle with three stars lying near it. (At that
time the Pole was some distance from the present Pole-star.) And since
Pytheas steered by the stars, the Pole of the heavens was obviously of
the highest importance to him. A gnomon, it may be explained, was the
pillar of projection which cast the shadow on the various Greek forms
of dial. In the case under discussion the gnomon was a vertical column
raised on a plane.
As to the species of ship in which Pytheas sailed we can but speculate.
Most probably it was somewhat similar to the Phœnician type, with
oarsmen and one mast with squaresail. But what is known is that he
sailed out through the Pillars of Hercules. At that date Cape St.
Vincent--then known as the Sacred Promontory--was the furthest of the
world’s limit in the minds of the Greeks. He was the first to sail
along the coasts of Northern Gaul and Germany. He was the discoverer
of at least most of Great Britain, the Shetlands, and Norway as far as
the Arctic Circle. And as he voyaged he studied the phenomena of the
sea--collected invaluable data as to tides and their origin. Himself
a Greek and unaccustomed to tidal movements, he was the first of his
race to connect this systematic flowing and ebbing of the sea with the
moon. Dr. Nansen, himself the greatest explorer of our times, has not
hesitated to describe Pytheas as “one of the most capable and undaunted
explorers the world has ever seen.” But as so often happens in the case
of a pioneer, Pytheas was ahead of his time, and the description which
he brought back of his travels, of the strange lands and unheard-of
phenomena, was not believed by his contemporaries. There followed,
therefore, a gulf of incredulity for about three hundred years till we
come to the time of Julius Cæsar, and from that point we shall, in due
course, continue to trace the development of navigational science.