OCEAN, THE UNIVERSAL HIGHWAY 225 



day it is a never-ceasing wonder what great voyages 

 were undertaken by vessels which to-day we hardly 

 feel justified in allowing out of a river or an estuary. 

 Occasionally a small craft like Captain Slocum's 

 Spray, of twelve tons measurement, does make a 

 voyage round the world or across some of its stormiest 

 oceans, but it can never be gainsaid that long voyages 

 in small crafts mean the maximum of privation with 

 the minimum of usefulness. Of course, many of the 

 adventurers had high hearts but low means, and, like 

 schoolboys of to-day, thought that if they could only 

 get a boat something floatable they would in some 

 haphazard fashion find their way to the other side of 

 the round world. That, of course, was an entirely 

 proper spirit, and one that carried its possessors far ; 

 but what we must quarrel with these old seamen for is 

 the way in which they allowed the shipbuilders to 

 overload even these tiny crafts with top-hamper, not of 

 masts and sails, but of solidly-built upper works, as if 

 at sea the ordinary laws governing stability were re- 

 versed. Yet, I don't know. As I write these words 

 my mind's eye pictures some of the old buildings in 

 England and Holland, whose upper stories bulge out 

 so amazingly as to make us feel sure that unless they 

 were supported by the neighbouring edifices, the first 

 blast of wind must topple them over. But, then, this 

 topheaviness is carried to an extraordinary length in 

 Moorish or Saracenic dwellings, and it does not seem 

 to have affected their shipbuilding in the same 

 manner. 



Enough ; in spite of the severe handicap placed 

 upon them by the smallness and build of their ships, 

 Spain and Portugal had led the way in ocean traffic 



Q 



