Man on the Ocean: A Book about Boats and Ships. R. M. Ballantyne

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СКАЧАТЬ size, and ventured on prolonged coasting-voyages, for the purposes of discovery and commerce. Navigation had been practised, and the art of ship-building had made very considerable progress, long before men dared to lose sight of the shore and venture out upon the mysterious bosom of the great unknown sea.

      To the ancients the Mediterranean was the ocean; and among its bays, and creeks, and islands, maritime enterprise sprang into being and rose into celebrity. Among the Phoenicians, the Egyptians, and Hebrews, we find the earliest traces of navigation and commerce. The first of these nations, occupying the narrow slip of land between Mount Lebanon and the Mediterranean, rose into fame as mariners between the years 1700 and 1100 before Christ—the renowned city of Sidon being their great sea-port, whence their ships put forth to trade with Cyprus and Rhodes, Greece, Sardinia, Sicily, Gaul, and Spain. Little is known of the state of trade in those days, or of the form or size of ancient vessels. Homer tells us, in his account of the Trojan War, that the Phoenicians supplied the combatants with many articles of luxury; and from Scripture we learn that the same enterprising navigators brought gold to Solomon from Ophir in the year 1000 B.C.

      A short time previous to this the Phoenicians ventured to pass through the Strait of Gibraltar, and for the first time beheld the great Atlantic Ocean. Proceeding along the coast of Spain, they founded Cadiz; and, not long after, creeping down the western coast of Africa, established colonies there. But their grandest feat was achieved about 600 years B.C., when they sailed down the Red Sea and the eastern coast of Africa, doubled the Cape of Good Hope, sailed up the western coast, and returned home by the Strait of Gibraltar. Bartholomew Diaz must hide his diminished head before this fact; for, although he gets all the credit, the Phoenicians of old “doubled the Cape” at least twenty centuries before him!

      That long voyages were made by the men of old, before authentic history began, seems highly probable. The expedition of the Argonauts to Colchis in the year 1250 B.C., in search of the “Golden Fleece,” is the first ancient voyage that lays claim to authenticity. What the Golden Fleece was is uncertain; some think it was a term used to symbolise the mines of precious metals near the Black Sea. Whatever it was, the Argonauts went in search of it: whether or not they found it is unrecorded in history. Jason, son of the King of Thessaly, was the leader of this expedition, which consisted of one ship and fifty men. A man named Argus built the ship, which from him was named the Argo, hence the name of Argonauts.

      In treating of ancient vessels, we may as well proceed on the principle suggested by a sagacious child, who, when his mother was about to tell him a story, usually begged of her to “bedin at the bedinning.” We shall begin at the beginning.

Chapter Three.

       Table of Contents

      Rafts and Canoes.

      Rafts, as we have already remarked, must undoubtedly have been the beginning of navigation. But they have not, like many other species of ancient craft, been altogether superseded by modern inventions. True, we do not nowadays carry on war on rafts, but we still carry on trade with them in many parts of the world. How the rafts of ancient times were formed we cannot tell precisely, though we can easily guess; but one thing we know, and that is, that the first improvement made in such craft was the thrusting of a few thick planks down into the water, to the depth of three or four feet, between the logs which composed the raft. These acted the part of a keel, and, by pressing against the water side-ways when a side wind blew, prevented the raft from making much of what is called leeway—that is, drifting in the direction in which the wind happened to be blowing. Some sorts of Dutch vessels use lee-boards for this purpose at the present time.

      The rafts now in use on the great rivers of America are exceedingly curious in many respects. One peculiarity of many of them is that they float themselves, not goods, to market—the pine logs of which they are constructed being the marketable commodity. Some of these “lumber-rafts,” as they are called, are of great size; and as their navigators have often to spend many weeks on them, slowly floating down the rivers, they build huts or little cottages on them, cook their provisions on board, and, in short, spend night and day in their temporary floating-homes as comfortably as if they were on the land.

      When these rafts approach a waterfall or a rapid, they unfasten the lashings and allow several logs tied together to run down at a time. After the rapid is passed, the loose logs are collected together, the raft is reconstructed, and the voyage down to the sea continued. Of course, huts are built only on rafts which navigate the largest rivers, and are not thus liable to be taken to pieces.

      When the logs reach the sea, they are shipped to various parts of the world where timber is scarce. Large quantities are imported into Great Britain from Canada and other parts of America.

      A bold thing has occasionally been done. Instead of shipping the logs in vessels, enterprising and ingenious men built them into a solid ship, leaving a small space to serve as a cabin and a hold for provisions; then, erecting masts, they hoisted sail, and in this singular craft crossed the Atlantic. On arriving at port they broke up their raft-ship and sold it.

      The immense size of the rafts which are floated down some of the great rivers of the world may be gathered from the following engraving, which represents a raft on the Dwina, one of the great rivers of Russia.

      Rafts, however, have not been confined to the purposes of traffic. They have frequently been the means of saving the lives of shipwrecked mariners; but too often they have been the means only of prolonging the wretched existence of those who have ultimately perished at sea.

      Turning now from the consideration of rafts, we shall describe canoes.

      Canoes must, we think, have been invented after rafts. They were formed, as we have said, out of logs, of bark and of skins stretched upon frames of wood. Of ancient canoes we can say little. But it is probable that they were similar in most respects to the canoes used by savage nations at the present time; for man, in his lowest or most savage condition, is necessarily the same now that he was in ancient times. We shall, therefore, take a glance at the canoes of savage nations now existing, and thus shall form a good idea, we doubt not, of what canoes were in days of old.

      Simplest among them all, perhaps, are the canoes of the North American Indians. These are built of thin laths and ribs of wood, and are covered with the bark of the birch-tree. The sheets of bark are not a quarter of an inch thick. Several sheets are used in the covering of one canoe. They are sewed together with the long pliant roots of the pine, and the seams are rendered tight with gum procured from the same tree. So light are these canoes, that two men can carry on their shoulders one capable of holding eight or ten men, with their provisions, etcetera, for a voyage of many months. They are of various sizes—from the hunting canoe which holds one Indian, to the largest canoe that carries fourteen. They are propelled by short paddles instead of oars.

      Many and terrible are the risks run by voyageurs who travel through the lakes and rivers of North America in these canoes.

      The following anecdote is related of a narrow escape made by some fur-traders while descending one of the rivers in the backwoods СКАЧАТЬ