Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 1).djvu/106

 on a pivot, the sail may have been triced up and furled to it: the cross bars, at the top of the masts, serving to enable the sailors more easily to furl the sail, tend to confirm this supposition. Although such a mode of furling the sail would be inconvenient and full of risk, if the ship were exposed to heavy seas, it would answer very well for barges on the Nile, as the yard and sail, when furled, would be entirely clear of the cargo while loading or unloading. It has been supposed that the sail, in this vessel, was made of papyrus, as noticed by Herodotus; but it may be doubted whether papyrus could be manufactured into a material sufficiently tough to form a large sail. The braces are apparently worked by a man seated in the stern.

The mode of steering here depicted is different from that usually seen on the monuments, for, instead of a single oar, passing through the stern frames, or one on each quarter, there are, in this instance, three on the same quarter; and how this was managed it is not easy to discern. Nor does the drawing show the mode in which the propelling oars were triced up when not in use.

Tacitus speaks of Germanic tribes who used a rudder at each end; but the practice was not general, and none of the Egyptian boats or barges were thus fitted, or had more than one sail, in these respects resembling the earliest of the Greek vessels. Sometimes a single rudder, instead of working in a rowlock, or in a porthole through the stern, was applied outside, merely over the stern-rail, and held in its place by a stout thong. This imperfect mode of steering was,