ltiriO.J PKOGEEDINGS OF UNITED 8TATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 451 



have served to pass the ropes through wheu the boat was to be hauled 

 ashore. The ribs, which give the boat its shape, are mostly in their 

 natural crooked and irreguhirly bent shape, and rest on the clamps pro- 

 jecting from the planks, which form regular rows across the boat, those 

 on one plank corresponding exactly to those on the next. The ribs have 

 perforations corresponding to the clamps, through which bast ropes 

 were passed, tying planks and ribs together. This is again a fact highly 

 surprising in a nation familiar with the use of iron, and able to work it 

 so well, as their damascened swords prove that they could. At the 

 same time it is possible that a loose connection between the frame- work 

 and the planking of the boat served to give more elasticity to the sides, 

 and that the boats built in this manner went through the surf and great 

 waves easier than those more strongly built. 



"On the gunwale were fixed the rowlocks, which, although made on 

 the same general model, yet all differed from one another in size and in 

 the details of the work. They were tied to the gunwale by me^^ns of 

 bast ropes, and in this case, too, it might seem surprising that for fix- 

 ing such important j^ieces as the rowlocks recourse should have been 

 had to such weak fastenings, which must so often hive required to be 

 renewed. 



" But this method had at the same time the advantage of rendering it 

 possible to turn them, when necessary, and row the boat in the opposite 

 direction, particularly as both ends of the boat are so exactly alike 

 that it is difficult to say which is the prow and which is the stern. It 

 is true that the width of the boat at the fourth rib is a few inches 

 greater than at the fifteenth rib, which corresponds to it at the other 

 side ; but this difference is so small that it was probably not inten- 

 tional, and the boat has no doubt been designed to shoot through the 

 waves with equal speed, whichever way it was rowed. Its shape, there- 

 fore, in some respects, reminds us of Tacitus' description of the ships 

 of Suiones^ For their ships differed entirely from those of the Romans, 

 particularly in this, that the stems were exactly alike, so that, which- 

 ever way they were rowed, they had a i)row fit for resisting a collision 

 or for landing; and, besides, the ships of the Suiones had no sails. 

 Tacitus further says of these boats, that their oars were not fixed in a 

 row along the sides, but were loose, as in certain craft used on rivers, 

 and could be put into the water on either side, as might be required; 

 but this part of the description would not apply to the boats found at 

 Nydam, for on them the oars were passed through loops of rope tied 

 to the rowlocks, on which the marks of wear by the oars are still 

 quite visible ; they could not be turned the other way without loss of 

 time and labor, nor would it be possible to back the oars for any length 

 of time, or with sufficient precision, when they are thus tied to the row- 

 locks. 



Germanica C, 44. 



