274 OUR HERITAGE THE SEA 



human misery and human fortitude is opened up to 

 us ! Even when compared with the daily life of the 

 peasant or common soldiers of those days, beside 

 which we know that the existence of the prisoners in 

 our gaols is positive luxury, how unbearable appears 

 the life of the mediaeval sailor ! Cooped up in craft 

 so small that an Atlantic voyage in one of them to- 

 day would appear an act of suicidal folly, there were so 

 many of them that there was hardly room to move, 

 and every law of health was perforce violated. The 

 stench, the vermin, the abominations of every sort, 

 were impossible to enumerate, impossible for us in 

 these happy days to understand. The food, and 

 especially the water, was putrid beyond corruption, 

 and only by appreciating the miracle of the human 

 body can we begin to understand how it was that the 

 vessels did not become simply floating charnel-houses. 

 For one thing, only those almost superhumanly strong 

 did survive, the weaker were quickly weeded out and 

 dumped overboard. 



Then came the dread of the unknown, the conse- 

 quently recurring question whether they would not 

 presently come to the edge of the world and be 

 launched over it into bottomless space. Fortunately 

 the rank and file of those days had few ideas. They 

 could endure, they could fight, and they could die. 

 And it is certain that, life being so full of horrors, 

 none of them could have felt very much repugnance 

 at the prospect of leaving it, for they could hardly 

 expect anything worse than they were then enduring. 

 Also there was always dangled before them, will-o'- 

 the-wisp like, the prospect of untold riches in which 

 they might possibly share. What they would do with 



