in the vessel's sides, the oars would be longer and
longer, and would project far beyond the lower ones; indeed, they would
become sweeps, and probably the inner part of each would extend
completely across the vessel, and thus the upper oars on the same tier
would not be opposite to each other. The lowest tier would perhaps be
pulled only by one or two men, and as the tiers rose in height, and
consequently the oars in length, more men would be added. Then, again,
the lower tiers would have many more oars than the upper, and
consequently even more men would be seated on the lower than on the
upper benches. This, I think, is the best solution as to the difficulty
regarding the mode in which the rowers of a large galley were placed.
The hold and the deck immediately below the rowers was thus left for
cargo and stores, and perhaps for sleeping-places, while the deck and
forecastle, and aftercastle or poop above them, were free for working
the sails and for righting. The officers, and perhaps the crew, slept
under the poop and forecastle, and in other buildings on deck, as is the
case on board many vessels at the present day, only the forecastles and
poops were more like those of a Chinese junk than of any modern European
craft.

Henry the Second, in the year 1171, collected or built a fleet of four
hundred ships of great size, for the purpose of carrying over his troops
for the conquest of Ireland, which country he annexed to the English
crown. These ships, as no enemy was to be encountered on the ocean,
were merely transports.

Richard the First, of the Lion Heart, who began to reign 1189, fitted
out a fleet, which, when assembled in the port of Messina in Sicily, in
the year 1189, ready to carry his army to the shores of the Holy Land,
consisted of sixteen capital ships of extraordinary burden (occupying
the position of three-deckers), one hundred and fifty ordinary ships of
war, and fifty-three galleys, besides vessels of less size and tenders.
In his passage to Acre, known also as Ptolemais, he encountered a huge
vessel of the Saracens, laden with ammunition and provisions, bound for
the same place which was then besieged by the Christian army. She was
called the Dromunda, and her size was enormous. Though she appeared
like some huge castle floating on the sea, Richard ordered his galleys
to attack her, and as they approached, they were received by showers of
missiles, Greek fire, and other horrible combustible