" is, properly speaking, a
square block of wood containing the sheaves on which the
halyards travelled. The Egyptian apparatus had no sheaves,
and answers to the "calcet" on the masts of a galley only in
its serving the same purpose.

The crew comprised thirty rowers, fifteen on each side, four top-men,
two steersmen, a pilot at the bow, who signalled to the men at the helm
the course to steer, a captain and a governor of the slaves, who formed,
together with ten soldiers, a total of some fifty men.* In time of
battle, as the rowers would be exposed to the missiles of the enemy,
the bulwarks were further heightened by a mantlet, behind which the oars
could be freely moved, while the bodies of the men were fully protected,
their heads alone being visible above it. The soldiers were stationed
as follows: two of them took their places on the forecastle, a third was
perched on the masthead in a sort of cage improvised on the bars forming
the top, while the remainder were posted on the deck and poop, from
which positions and while waiting for the order to board they could pour
a continuous volley of arrows on the archers and sailors of the enemy.**

* I have made this calculation from an examination of the
scenes in which ships are alternatively represented as at
anchor and under weigh. I know of vessels of smaller size,
and consequently with a smaller crew, but I know of none
larger or more fully manned.

** The details are taken from the only representation of a
naval battle which we possess up to this moment, viz. that
of which I shall have occasion to speak further on in
connection with the reign of Ramses III.

The first colony of which the Phoenicians made themselves masters was
that island of Cyprus whose low, lurid outline they could see on fine
summer evenings in the glow of the western sky. Some hundred and ten
miles in length and thirty-six in breadth, it is driven like a wedge
into the angle which Asia Minor makes with the Syrian coast: it throws
out to the north-east a narrow strip of land, somewhat like an extended
finger pointing to where the two coasts meet at the extremity of the
gulf of Issos. A limestone cliff, of almost uniform height throughout,
bounds, for half its length at least, the northern side of the island,
broken occasionally by short deep valleys, which open out into creeks
deeply embayed. A scattered population of fishermen e