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.

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ancient craft, been altogether superseded by modern inventions.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 h