Page:The history of yachting.djvu/54

 14 this is derived the slang word Jaghten, meaning to hurry up, to drive forward, to urge to greater speed; also the word Jaght—the chase, hunt, hunting.

Jaght was by no means applied exclusively to vessels; indeed, from the same authority we take the following definitions of the word: Jaght Hond, a hunting hound; Jaght Net, a hunting net; Jaght Perrd, a huntsman's or hunting horse; Jaght Horen, a hunting horn, trumpet, or clarion; Jaght Stock, a hunting staff or spear; Jaght Vogel, a hunting hawk.

In the above definitions we do not find any suggestion of the yacht as a vessel, but the same dictionary gives Jaght, Jaghte, Jaght Schip—a swift, light-built vessel of war, commerce, or pleasure,—a yacht.

The word, it is seen, had a wide meaning, and often signified a spendidly furnished State or private vessel handsomely and comfortably furnished; also a small private vessel, owned partly for pleasure, partly for use; or a vessel attached to a squadron, fitted with accommodations for an admiral or other officer; used to communicate with the vessels of a fleet or with the shore; carrying dispatches or keeping watch on an enemy's ships. A yacht might also be a vessel engaged upon an expedition, alone or in company with other vessels. And yet, with this wide range of uses, there was something distinctive about the seventeenth-century yacht of Holland—she could never be mistaken for anything else.