Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 1).djvu/387

 the emperor's acute eye at once detected, from the build and swiftness of the vessels, that their purpose was not trade but mischief.

Some remarkable discoveries in Denmark have revealed recently the remains of a plank-built boat sufficiently complete to admit of the entire reconstruction of the vessel as it floated. If we compare this vessel (see page 336) with the accounts of the hide-covered coracles which carried the Scots from Ireland, or with the lumbering canoe cut out of the solid wood, such as may still be seen on the lakes of Bavaria, we obtain at a glance the measure of the high capacity of those who built the vessels for the Vikings. The Northern antiquaries have fixed her date as "the early iron age," probably about the fifth century. Close examination has led to the conclusion that she was entirely a row-boat, with no arrangement for help from canvas; "yet it is seventy-seven feet long, measured from stem to stern, and proportionally rather broad in the middle."

It immediately recalls the light handy boats of smaller size still used on the Norwegian coast, and in the Shetlands; and its structure is so thoroughly adapted to a union of lightness, speed, and strength, that it has been compared with the class of vessels now called clippers.