Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 1).djvu/564

 and a gondola of twelve oars, the smallest of which could hardly have been carried on her deck, and must, with the others, have followed her at sea and attended upon her in harbour. In the contract, the most minute details are given of her stores, in which are comprised a sounding lead, three grapnels with chains, six lanterns, one being of glass, hatchets, nails, hammers, scales, pitch kettles, and so forth.

There must, however, be various extraordinary inaccuracies in the dimensions of these vessels, as supplied by Steinitz and other historians. The cubit, as known to the Romans and Greeks, was about a foot and a half. It was divided by the Romans into six breadths, or palms, of three inches each; and such were, no doubt, the dimensions of the cubit and palm as known to the Italian republics, and as understood in our own time. If this be so, it follows that each of the larger vessels was seventy-five feet extreme length, and only ten feet beam; four and a half feet depth of hold, with a fore-mast seventy-seven feet in length, of three feet in circumference, and a yard no less than one hundred and fifty feet long. No doubt the yards of the vessels of that period were of enormous length, as may be seen in the "lateen" rigged craft of the present day, and far in excess of the yards of modern ships as compared to the size and length of these vessels; but it would be absurd to suppose that a vessel of only ten feet in width, and under five feet deep, could carry a mast seventy-seven feet long, much less a yard of double that length; nor could a vessel of the dimensions supplied have stabling for fifty horses, or room to hold the spare spars, sails,