OCEAN, THE UNIVERSAL HIGHWAY 231 



upon those old sea-worthies with the greatest admira- 

 tion for the work they did in laying the foundation 

 of our gigantic oversea trade. It has to be remembered, 

 too, how small the vessels were, how overmanned and 

 hampered with the necessary armament to enable them 

 either to defend themselves or to attack a weaker 

 vessel that offered plunder. We shall not be able to 

 restrain our praise of the simple old pirates who did 

 such wonderful work under such adverse conditions. 



Still the ocean was, like the desert, a hunting- 

 ground for the descendants of Ishmael. Pretexts for 

 attacking, plundering, and destroying ships of another 

 nation were always forthcoming, and the only im- 

 provement that could be noticed was that it was 

 seldom that ships bearing the same flag attacked 

 one another. There was no regular navy anywhere 

 now, for the old Italian maritime republics had fallen 

 upon evil days, and could no longer boast of their 

 thousands of merchant vessels and their scores of 

 war galleys to protect them. Every ship now was 

 man-of-war or peaceful trader, as the occasion arose ; 

 but it was a prime necessity for any seaman that he 

 should know how to fight for the safety of his ship. 

 If he did not, or could not, there was an end of him 

 and his crew, and his owner's gains, for there was 

 no such thing as insurance or protection by vessels 

 exclusively equipped for war. 



Again, it is obvious that these old seamen are en- 

 titled to our unstinted admiration in that they accom- 

 plished what they did in development of ocean traffic 

 when the odds against them were so heavy. Not only 

 were they handicapped in the passing of those vast ocean 

 solitudes by the puerile size and equipment of their 



