Il8 THE CALL OF THE SEA 



years ago. They have it still. It is nearer a lug- 

 sail than anything else, and indeed our Deal 

 luggers carry something very near it. It is almost 

 a square sail, but the yard has a slight rake and 

 there is a bit of a peak to it. It is the kind of sail 

 which seems to come first into the mind of any 

 man when he sets out to use the wind. It is to be 

 seen continually to-day hoisted above small boats 

 in the north of Europe. 



But this sail is too simple. It will not go close 

 to the wind, and in those light and variable airs 

 which somehow have no force along the deck, it 

 hangs empty and makes no way because it has no 

 height. 



Now when during that great renaissance of 

 theirs in the seventh century the Arabs left their 

 deserts and took to the sea, they became for a 

 short time in sailing, as in philosophy, the teachers 

 of their new subjects. They took this sail, which 

 they had found in all the ports they had concjuered 

 along this coast — in Alexandria, in Cyrene, in Car- 

 thage, in Caesarea — they lightened and lengthened 

 the yard, they lifted the peak up high, they clewed 

 down the foot, and very soon they had that tri- 

 angular lateen sail which will, perhaps, remain 

 when every other evidence of their early conquer- 

 ing energy has disappeared. With such a sail 

 they drove those first fleets of theirs which gave 



