The sails used in these ships were usually square; and when there was more than one mast, that nearest the stern was the largest. The rigging was of the simplest description, consisting sometimes of only two ropes from the mast to the bow and stern. There was usually a deck at the bow and stern, but never in the centre of the vessel. Steering was managed by means of a huge broad oar, sometimes a couple, at the stern. A formidable "beak" was affixed to the fore-part of the ships of war, with which the crew charged the enemy. The vessels were painted black, with red ornaments on the bows; to which latter Homer is supposed to refer when he writes of red-cheeked ships.

Ships built by the Greeks and Romans for war were sharper and more elegant than those used in commerce; the latter being round bottomed, and broad, in order to contain cargo.

The Corinthians were the first to introduce _triremes_ into their navy (about 700 years B.C.), and they were also the first who had any navy of importance. The Athenians soon began to emulate them, and ere long constructed a large fleet of vessels both for war and commerce. That these ancient ships were light compared with ours, is proved by the fact that when the Greeks landed to commence the siege of Troy they _drew up their ships on the sh.o.r.e_. We are also told that ancient mariners, when they came to a long narrow promontory of land, were sometimes wont to land, draw their ships bodily across the narrowest part of the isthmus, and launch them on the other side.

Moreover, they had a salutary dread of what sailors term "blue water"-- that is, the deep, distant sea--and never ventured out of sight of land.

They had no compa.s.s to direct them, and in their coasting voyages of discovery they were guided, if blown out to sea, by the stars.

The sails were made of linen in Homer's time; subsequently sail-cloth was made of hemp, rushes, and leather. Sails were sometimes dyed of various colours and with curious patterns. Huge ropes were fastened round the ships to bind them more firmly together, and the bulwarks were elevated beyond the frame of the vessels by wicker-work covered with skins.

Stones were used for anchors, and sometimes crates of small stones or sand; but these were not long of being superseded by iron anchors with teeth or flukes.

The Romans were not at first so strong in naval power as their neighbours, but in order to keep pace with them they were ultimately compelled to devote more attention to their navies. About 260 B.C. they raised a large fleet to carry on the war with Carthage. A Carthaginian quinquereme which happened to be wrecked on their coast was taken possession of by the Romans, used as a model, and one hundred and thirty ships constructed from it. These ships were all built, it is said, in six days; but this appears almost incredible. We must not, however, judge the power of the ancients by the standard of present times. It is well known that labour was cheap then, and we have recorded in history the completion of great works in marvellously short time, by the mere force of myriads of workmen.

The Romans not only succeeded in raising a considerable navy, but they proved themselves ingenious in the contrivance of novelties in their war-galleys. They erected towers on the decks, from the top of which their warriors fought as from the walls of a fortress. They also placed small cages or baskets on the top of their masts, in which a few men were placed to throw javelins down on the decks of the enemy; a practice which is still carried out in principle at the present day, men being placed in the "tops" of the masts of our men-of-war, whence they fire down on the enemy. It was a bullet from the "top" of one of the masts of the enemy that laid low our greatest naval hero, Lord Nelson.

From this time the Romans maintained a powerful navy. They crippled the maritime power of their African foes, and built a number of ships with six and even ten ranks of oars. The Romans became exceedingly fond of representations of sea-fights, and Julius Caesar dug a lake in the Campus Martius specially for these exhibitions. They were not by any means sham fights. The unfortunates who manned the ships on these occasions were captives or criminals, who fought as the gladiators did-- to the death--until one side was exterminated or spared by imperial clemency. In one of these battles no fewer than a hundred ships and nineteen thousand combatants were engaged!

Such were the people who invaded Britain in the year 55 B.C. under Julius Caesar, and such the vessels from which they landed upon our sh.o.r.es to give battle to the then savage natives of our country.

It is a curious fact that the crusades of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries were the chief cause of the advancement of navigation after the opening of the Christian era. During the first five hundred years after the birth of our Lord, nothing worthy of notice in the way of maritime enterprise or discovery occurred.

But about this time an event took place which caused the foundation of one of the most remarkable maritime cities in the world. In the year 476 Italy was invaded by the barbarians. One tribe, the Veneti, who dwelt upon the north-eastern sh.o.r.es of the Adriatic, escaped the invaders by fleeing for shelter to the marshes and sandy islets at the head of the gulf, whither their enemies could not follow by land, owing to the swampy nature of the ground, nor by sea, on account of the shallowness of the waters. The Veneti took to fishing, then to making salt, and finally to mercantile enterprises. They began to build, too, on those sandy isles, and soon their cities covered ninety islands, many of which were connected by bridges. And thus arose the far-famed city of the waters--"Beautiful Venice, the bride of the sea."

Soon the Venetians, and their neighbours the Genoese, monopolised the commerce of the Mediterranean.

The crusades now began, and for two centuries the Christian warred against the Turk in the name of Him who, they seem to have forgotten, if indeed the ma.s.s of them ever knew, is styled the Prince of Peace. One of the results of these crusades was that the Europeans engaged acquired a taste for Eastern luxuries, and the fleets of Venice and Genoa, Pisa and Florence, ere long crowded the Mediterranean, laden with jewels, silks, perfumes, spices, and such costly merchandise. The Normans, the Danes, and the Dutch also began to take active part in the naval enterprise thus fostered, and the navy of France was created under the auspices of Philip Augustus.

The result of all this was that there was a great moving, and, to some extent, commingling of the nations. The knowledge of arts and manufactures was interchanged, and of necessity the knowledge of various languages spread. The West began constantly to demand the products of the East, wealth began to increase, and the sum of human knowledge to extend.

Shortly after this era of opening commercial prosperity in the Mediterranean, the hardy Northmen performed deeds on the deep which outrival those of the great Columbus himself, and were undertaken many centuries before his day.

The Angles, the Saxons, and the Northmen inhabited the borders of the Baltic, the sh.o.r.es of the German Ocean, and the coasts of Norway. Like the nations on the sh.o.r.es of the Mediterranean, they too became famous navigators; but, unlike them, war and piracy were their chief objects of pursuit. Commerce was secondary.

In vessels resembling that of which the above is a representation, those nations went forth to plunder the dwellers in more favoured climes, and to establish the Anglo-Saxon dominion in England; and their celebrated King Alfred became the founder of the naval power of Britain, which was destined in future ages to rule the seas.

It was the Northmen who, in huge open boats, pushed off without chart or compa.s.s (for neither existed at that time) into the tempestuous northern seas, and, in the year 863, discovered the island of Iceland; in 983, the coast of Greenland; and, a few years later, those parts of the American coast now called Long Island, Rhode Island, Ma.s.sachusetts, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland. It is true they did not go forth with the scientific and commercial views of Columbus; neither did they give to the civilised world the benefit of their knowledge of those lands. But although their purpose was simply selfish, we cannot withhold our admiration of the bold, daring spirit displayed by those early navigators, under circ.u.mstances of the greatest possible disadvantage-- with undecked or half-decked boats, meagre supplies, no scientific knowledge or appliances, and the stars their only guide over the trackless waste of waters.

In the course of time, one or two adventurous travellers pushed into Asia, and men began to ascertain that the world was not the insignificant disc, or cylinder, or ball they had deemed it. Perhaps one of the chief among those adventurous travellers was Marco Polo, a Venetian, who lived in the latter part of the thirteenth century. He made known the central and eastern portions of Asia, j.a.pan, the islands of the Indian Archipelago, part of the continent of Africa, and the island of Madagascar, and is considered the founder of the modern geography of Asia.

The adventures of this wonderful man were truly surprising, and although he undoubtedly exaggerated to some extent in his account of what he had seen, his narrations are for the most part truthful. He and his companions were absent on their voyages and travels twenty-one years.

Marco Polo died; but the knowledge of the East opened up by him, his adventures and his wealth, remained behind to stir up the energies of European nations. Yet there is no saying how long the world would have groped on in this twilight of knowledge, and mariners would have continued to "hug the sh.o.r.e" as in days gone by, had not an event occurred which at once revolutionised the science of navigation, and formed a new era in the history of mankind. This was the invention of the mariner's compa.s.s.

CHAPTER FIVE.

THE MARINER'S COMPa.s.s--PORTUGUESE DISCOVERIES.

"What _is_ the compa.s.s?" every philosophical youth of inquiring disposition will naturally ask. We do not say that all youths will make this inquiry. Many there are who will at once say, "Oh, I know! It's a needle with a card on the top of it--sometimes a needle with a card under it--which always points to the north, and shows sailors how to steer their ships."

Very well explained indeed, my self-sufficient friend; but you have not answered the question. You have told us what a compa.s.s is like, and one of the uses to which it is applied; but you have not yet told what it _is_. A man who had never heard of a compa.s.s might exclaim, "What! a needle! Is it a darning needle, or a knitting needle, or a drawing-through needle? And which end points to the north--the eye or the point? And if you lay it on the table the wrong end to the north, will it turn round of its own accord?"

You laugh, perhaps, and explain; but it would have been better to have explained correctly at first. Thus:--

The mariner's compa.s.s is a small, flat bar of magnetised steel, which, when balanced on a pivot, turns one of its ends persistently towards the north pole--the other, of course, towards the south pole; and it does this in consequence of its being magnetised. A card is fixed above, sometimes below, this bar of steel (which is called the needle), whereon are marked the cardinal points--north, south, east, and west--with their subdivisions or intermediate points, by means of which the true direction of any point can be ascertained.

"Aha!" you exclaim, "Mr Author, but you yourself have omitted part of the explanation. _Why_ is it that the magnetising of the needle causes it to turn to the north?"

I answer humbly, "I cannot tell;" but, further, I a.s.sert confidently, "Neither can anybody else." The fact is known, and we see its result; but the reason why magnetised steel or iron should have this tendency, this polarity, is one of the mysteries which man has not yet been able to penetrate, and probably never will.

Having explained the nature of the compa.s.s, as far as explanation is possible, we present our reader with a picture of one.

It will be seen that there are four large points--N, S, E, and W--the cardinal points above referred to, and that these are subdivided by twelve smaller points, with one little black triangular point between each, and a mult.i.tude of smaller points round the outer circle. To give these points their correct names is called "boxing the compa.s.s,"--a lesson which all seamen can trip off their tongues like A, B, C, and which most boys could learn in a few hours.

For the sake of those who are anxious to acquire the knowledge, we give the following explanation: Let us begin with north. The large point midway between N and E (to the right) is _north-east_. The corresponding point midway between N and W (to the left) is _north-west_. A glance will show that the corresponding points towards the south are respectively _south-east_ and _south-west_ (usually written S.E. and S.W., as the two former points are written N.E. and N.W.). Now, to read off the compa.s.s with this amount of knowledge is very simple. Thus: _North_, _north-east_, _east_, _south-east_, _south_, _south-west_, _west_, _north-west_, _north_. But be it observed that, in the language of the sea, the _th_ is thrown overboard, except when the words north and south occur alone. When conjoined with other points they are p.r.o.nounced thus: nor'-east, sou'-east; and so on.

To come now to the smaller subdivisions, it will suffice to take a quarter of the circle. The point midway between N.E. and N. is "nor'-nor'-east" (N.N.E.), and the corresponding one between N.E. and E.

is "east nor'-east" (E.N.E.). These points are again subdivided by little black points which are thus named:--The first, next the N., is "north by east" (N. by E.); the corresponding one next the E. is "east by north" (E. by N.). The second _black_ point from N. is "nor'-east by north" (N.E. by N.), and the corresponding one--namely, the second black point from east--is "nor'-east by east" (N.E. by E.). Thus, in reading off the compa.s.s, we say--beginning at north and proceeding to east-- North: north by east; nor'-nor'-east; nor'-east by north; nor'-east; nor'-east by east; east nor'-east; east by north; east;--and so on with the other quarters of the circle.

So much for "boxing the compa.s.s." The manner in which it is used on board ship, and the various instruments employed in connection with it in the working of a vessel at sea, will be explained shortly; but first let us glance at the history of the compa.s.s.

It is a matter of great uncertainty when, where, and by whom the mariner's compa.s.s was invented. Flavio Gioia, a Neapolitan captain or pilot, who lived about the beginning of the fourteenth century, was generally recognised throughout Europe as the inventor of this useful instrument; but time and research have thrown new light on this subject.

Probably the Neapolitan pilot was the first who brought the compa.s.s into general notice in Europe; but long before 1303 (the year in which it was said to have been invented) the use of the magnetic needle was known to the Chinese.

_Loadstone_, that mineral which has the mysterious power of attracting iron, and also of imparting to iron its own attractive power, was known to the Chinese before the year 121, in which year a famous Chinese dictionary was completed, wherein the word _magnet_ is defined as "the name of a stone which gives direction to a needle." This proves not only that they knew the attractive properties of the loadstone, and its power of imparting these properties to metal, but also that they were aware of the polarity of a magnetised needle. Another Chinese dictionary, published between the third and fourth centuries, speaks of ships being guided in their course to the south by means of the magnet; and in a medical work published in China in 1112, mention is made of the _variation_ of the needle, showing that the Chinese had not only used the needle as a guide at sea, but had observed this one of its well-known peculiarities--namely, the tendency of the needle to point in a _very slight degree_ away from the true north.

In the thirteenth century, too, we find mention made of the needle by a poet and by two other writers; so that whatever Flavio Gioia may have done (and it is probable he did much) in the way of pushing the compa.s.s into notice in Europe, he cannot be said to be the inventor of it. That honour doubtless belongs to the Chinese. Be this as it may, the compa.s.s was invented; and in the fourteenth century it began that revolution in maritime affairs to which we have alluded.

The first compa.s.ses were curiously formed. The Chinese used a magnetised needle, which they placed in a bit of rush or pith, which was floated in a basin of water, and thus allowed to move freely and turn towards the poles. They also made needles in the form of iron fish. An Arabian author of the thirteenth century thus writes:--"I heard it said that the captains in the Indian seas subst.i.tute for the needle and reed a hollow iron fish magnetised, so that, when placed in the water, it points to the north with its head and to the south with its tail. The reason that the iron fish does not sink, is that metallic bodies, even the heaviest, float when hollow and when they displace a quant.i.ty of water greater than their own weight."

The use of the compa.s.s at sea is so simple, that, after what has been said, it scarcely requires explanation. When a ship sets sail for any port, she knows, first of all, the position of the port from which she sets sail, as well as that to which she is bound. A straight line drawn from the one to the other is her true course, supposing that there is deep, un.o.bstructed water all the way; and if the compa.s.s be placed upon that line, the point of the compa.s.s through which it pa.s.ses is the point by which she ought to steer. Suppose that her course ran through the east point of the compa.s.s: the ship's head would at once be turned in that direction, and she would continue her voyage with the needle of the compa.s.s pointing straight _across_ the deck, and the east and west points straight _along_ it.

But various causes arise in the actual practice of navigation to prevent a ship keeping her true course. Winds may be contrary, and currents may drive her either to the one side or the other of it; while land-- promontories, islands, and shallows--compel her to deviate from the direct line. A vessel also makes what is called "leeway;" which means that, when the wind blows on her side, she not only advances forward, but also slides through the water sidewise. Thus, in the course of a day, she may get a considerable distance off her true course--in sea parlance, "make a good deal of leeway."

To perform the voyage correctly and safely in the face of these obstacles and hindrances is the aim and end of navigation; and the manner of proceeding is as follows:--

The hour is carefully noted on setting sail, and from that moment, night and day, to the end of the voyage, certain observations are made and entered in the ship's journal, called the log. Every hour the rate at which the ship is going is ascertained and carefully noted. The point of the compa.s.s towards which the ship is to be steered is given by the captain or officer in command to the steersman, who stands at the wheel with a compa.s.s always before him in a box called the "_binnacle_." The course is never changed except by distinct orders from those in command; and when it is changed, the hour when the change is made and the new course to be steered are carefully noted down. Thus, at the end of the day, or at any other time if desired, the position of the ship can be ascertained by her course being drawn upon a chart of the ocean over which she is sailing,--correct charts, or maps, being provided by the captain before starting.

The estimate thus made is, however, not absolutely correct. It is called the "_dead-reckoning_," and is only an approximation to the truth, because allowance has to be made for leeway, which can only be guessed at. Allowance has also to be made for variations in the rate of sailing in each hour, for the winds do not always blow with exactly the same force during any hour of the day. On the contrary, they may vary several times within an hour, both in force and in direction. Those variations have to be watched and allowed for; but such allowance may be erroneous in a greater or less degree. Currents, too, may have exerted an unseen influence on the ship, thus rendering the calculation still less correct. Nevertheless, dead-reckoning is often the only guide the sailor has to depend upon for days at a time, when storms and cloudy skies prevent him from ascertaining his true position by other means, of which we shall speak presently.

Of course, in the early days of navigation there were no charts of the ocean. The navigator knew not whither he was hurrying over the wild waste of waters; but by observing the relative position of some of the fixed stars to his course while sailing out to sea, he could form a rough idea of the proper course to steer in order to return to the port whence he had started.

The compa.s.s, then, shows the sailor the course he has been going, and the _log_ (of which more presently) enables him to ascertain the rate at which he has proceeded; while his chronometers, or time-keepers, tell him the _time_ during which the course and rate of sailing have been kept up. And many a long cruise on the unknown deep has been successfully accomplished in days of old by bold seamen, with this method of dead-reckoning; and many a mariner at the present day depends almost entirely on it, while _all_ are, during thick, stormy weather, dependent on it for days and sometimes weeks together.

The _log_, to which we have referred, is the instrument by which is determined the rate at which a ship is progressing. It is a very simple contrivance: a triangular piece of wood about the size of a large saucer, with a piece of stout cord fastened to each corner, the ends of the cords being tied together, so that when held up, the "log," as it is called, resembles one of a pair of scales. One of the cords, however, is only temporarily attached to its corner by means of a peg, which when violently pulled comes out. One edge of the triangle is loaded with lead. The whole machine is fastened to the "log-line,"--a stout cord many fathoms long, which is wound on a large reel.

"Heaving the log," as we have said, takes place every hour. One sailor stands by with a sand-gla.s.s which runs exactly half a minute. Another holds the wooden reel; and a third heaves the log overboard, and "pays out" line as fast as he can make the reel spin. The instant it is thrown the first sailor turns the sand-gla.s.s. The log, being loaded on one side, floats perpendicularly in the water, remaining stationary of course; while the man who hove it watches sundry knots on the line as they pa.s.s over the stern of the ship, each knot representing a mile of rate of speed in the hour. As the last grain of sand drops to the bottom of the gla.s.s the first sailor gives a sharp signal, and the second clutches and checks the line, examines the knot nearest his hand, and thus knows at once how many knots or miles the ship is sailing at that time. The sudden stoppage of the line jerks the peg, before referred to, out of the log, thereby allowing the other two fixed cords to drag it flat and unresisting over the surface of the sea, when the line is reeled up and put by. The flight of another hour calls for a repet.i.tion of the heaving of the log.