Page:The Heimskringla; or, Chronicle of the Kings of Norway Vol 1.djvu/152

 or small, of the Northmen. They appear to have had a certain show and luxury about their sails; for we read of them having stripes of white, red, and blue cloths; and we read of Sigurd the Crusader waiting for a fortnight at the mouth of the Dardanelles with a fair wind for going up the strait, until he got a wind with which he could sail up with the sails trimmed fore and aft in his ships, that the inhabitants on shore might see the splendour of his sails. These large rowing vessels had one advantage belonging only to steam vessels in our times, that they could back out of seen dangers; and being under command of oars, and with small draught of water, shallows, rocks, and lee shores were not such formidable dangers to them as to our sailing vessels. Many important towns in those times, as for instance all our Cinque Ports, appear to have been situated rather with a reference originally to a good convenience for beaching such vessels, than to good sheltered harbours for riding at anchor in. The whole coast of the peninsula, from the North Cape round to Tornea, is protected from the main ocean by an almost continuous belt of islands, islets, rocks, and half-tide reefs, or skerries, within which the navigation is comparatively smooth, although very intricate for vessels with sails only. This inland passage "within the skerries" is used now, even in winter, by small boats going to the cod-fishing in the Lofoden isles from the Bergen district. It is only at particular openings, as at the mouths of the great fiords, that this continuous chain of sheltering isles and rocks is broken, and that the eye of the ocean, as the Norwegian fishermen express it, looks in upon the land. By waiting opportunities to cross these openings vessels of a small class, we may suppose, have accompanied King Olaf in his foray to the Danish islands, in hopes of booty more profitable than fish; and we need not believe his