232 OUR HERITAGE THE SEA 



vessels, the question of provisioning, which even to- 

 day, as far as seamen are concerned, still remains a 

 burning one, and the advance in astronomical know- 

 ledge was not all commensurate with the eager desire 

 of mariners to push forward to the innermost recesses 

 of old Ocean. And as to instruments, to mention 

 them only raises a smile of pity. The cross-staff for 

 measuring the sun's altitude and the compass made 

 up the sum of their scientific implements, so that 

 they could only hope to obtain an approximately 

 correct latitude; and as for longitude that was, and 

 continued to be for many generations, a matter of 

 pure guess work. There were no charts, at least none 

 worthy of the name, for the science of cartography 

 had not yet been born, and in consequence it was 

 only possible to proceed when near land (and they 

 had to watch the sea and the birds very carefully to 

 know whether they were near land or not) with the 

 utmost timidity and caution. Yet all unconsciously 

 they were adding to the sum of navigational know- 

 ledge, building up very slowly but very securely the 

 great fabric that should afterwards prove to men, of 

 no special force of character and only moderate in- 

 tellectual ability, an almost royal road to seafaring. 



Progress, of course, was continually hindered by 

 war. Ever eager to embrace any means whereby 

 they might rob and murder one another more easily, 

 men found that the ocean lent itself with peculiar 

 ease to these satanic developments of humanity, and 

 in consequence the beneficent side of ocean traffic was 

 continually hindered by the infernal practice of 

 merchant seamen preying upon one another, and 

 recognizing no law upon the sea but the primitive 



