practical knowledge of shipbuilding, and formed a mercantile navy to
carry on their commerce with other countries, as well as ships fitted
for warfare to protect their ports from foreign invasion, or from the
attacks of pirates.

Many English nautical terms at present in use are clearly of Phoenician
origin. Davit, for instance, is evidently derived from the Arabic word
_Davit_, a crooked piece of wood, similar in shape to that by which the
boats of a vessel are hoisted out of the water and hung up at her sides.
The word Caboose was the name given by the Phoenicians to the temple
dedicated to the god of fire, whom they worshipped, built on the decks
of their vessels; when a purer faith was introduced, it being found
convenient to cook dinners in the no longer sacred _Caboose_, the name
being retained, Blackie the cook took the place of the officiating
priest. Caboose is at the present day the name of the kitchen-house on
the deck of a merchant-vessel. Many other terms even now used by
seafaring people are derived directly or indirectly from the same
far-distant origin, as are several of the customs observed at the
present day. I may mention some of them by-and-by.

SHIPS OF THE ANCIENTS.

The ancient Greeks and other Eastern nations had ships of considerable
size many hundred years before the Christian era. The earliest mythical
stories describe long voyages performed by vessels of far more
complicated structure than the simple canoe. The ships engaged in the
Trojan war each carried a hundred and twenty warriors, which shows that
at the period referred to they could not have been of very small
dimensions. Although they might have been open, they had masts and
sails, and were propelled by rowers sitting on benches, while the oars
were fastened to the sides of the ship with leathern thongs. Some were
painted black, others red. When they arrived at their destination, the
bows were drawn up on shore; or when on a voyage, they at night anchored
by the stern, with cables secured to large stones. At an early period
they had round bottoms and sharp prows. We hear of ships with three
ranks of rowers, called triremes, B.C. 700, and long before that time
biremes, or ships with two ranks of oars, had been introduced. In the
time of Cyrus, long sharp-keeled war-ships were used, having fifty
rowers, who sat in one row, twenty-five on each side of the ship. About
B.C. 400, the practice of entirely decking over ships was