104 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Jan. 18, 1908. 
Sails. 
I do not take much stock in the syndicate 
theory of papyrus canvas as the original sail, 
because from time immemorial native women 
of nations ten times older than the “finxes” 
were accustomed to weave a coarse, stout cloth, 
not unlike No. 1 canvas, which was well cal¬ 
culated for sails in large vessels. This stuff is 
called abah, and is still manufactured. Guar- 
mani saw it in proces of manufacture. Arabic 
women also made, and still make, cloth used 
for striped cloaks and very fine carpets. 
Doughty, than whom “no one has looked so 
narrowly at the land and the life”—and who 
“has painted them in literature with a touch so 
sensitive, so sincere, and so sure,” that mis¬ 
take is impossible, mentions these facts. Read 
Hogarth, pages 274-284. 
“Mahara tribes, it is practically certain, are 
survivors of the oldest race, forced out of richer 
lands in the south by the Semitic peoples, who 
now hold the peninsula. They speak a tongue 
which is at bottom not Semitic, practice animistic 
cults, and have all the hunted and suspicious 
habits of a refugee population.”* Socotra, the 
island seat of their sultan, furnishes further evi¬ 
dence of “the facts about their proto-arabic 
speech” which has since been “ascertained, but 
of their mainland home no more has been 
learned, for they have allowed no European 
eye to see beyond its uttermost fringe.”* 
These people were among the earliest navi¬ 
gators of adjacent se^s. Egypt ancient, did you 
say? How can any one call a country by that 
vague and discriminating name when it under¬ 
stood steam! True, the rich were too indolent 
to utilize it, but they knew all about it and still, 
preferred papyrus, did they? I guess not; hold 
a piece of that stuff up to the light and see if 
it would wash, hold wind, or live out a tempest. 
My dear sirs, the land of the avenue of sphinxes 
never was heard of when the earliest navigators 
went round the Eastern Hemisphere. Arabia, 
India and a few nameless nomads comprised the 
inhabitants of the orient. 
Midian, Medina, a wild, granitic region, on a 
sea that is christened red, were the original 
lands of incense and date palms. The ancient 
races lived there in splendor before dates were 
written or time had been separated from 
eternity and subdivided into little years. Settled 
society exists to this late day in the southwest¬ 
ern borders of the ridge formed by volcanic 
action. Yeman is continuous with it. and this 
home of Arabs, that have no nomads among 
them, consists of short southerly wadybeds, 
which they cultivate. Shukra small ports afford 
them direct communication with the sea. Here 
was the seat df sabaean civilization, and its 
memorials are still well preserved. 
I imagine a new, slow smile creeping 
over the time-worn and antique countenance 
of that idle “finx” as he listens to the wireless 
hum of our speculations concerning his aged 
recollections of papyrus sails! Inland naviga¬ 
tion before the pyramids foundered in a sea 
of sand must have been too primitive to be 
more than vaguely speculative. 
I tell you. gentlemen, this sandy-complexioned 
ancient really belongs to the middle ages. We 
knew him in school when the “jographies” 
tried to make us believe that the “charbig 
boode” soaked up the tides without any con¬ 
sideration whatever for the centrifugal motion 
of the earth They are doing it yet—“an’ folks 
b’lieve ’em.” 
Arabs were never enslaved. “Turks may ex¬ 
ercise a shadow of jurisdiction, but their pride 
is reduced to soliciting the friendship of a 
people whom it is dangerous to provoke and 
fruitless to attack.” Pompey, Trajan and the 
tyrants who followed these, “could never 
achieve the conquest” of this high-minded and 
truly independent race. It was always at 
liberty and remains free to this day. “The 
slaves of domestic tyranny may vainly exult 
in their national independence, but the Arab is 
personally free and he enjoys in some degree 
the benefits of society without forfeiting the 
prerogative of nature.” His country for the 
most part was a ridge of waterless plain and a 
rim of irrigated sand. What wonder then that 
he took 40 the sea as naturally as a duck takes 
himself to water. He built large ships of ex¬ 
cellent model, giving them stout spars of cedar 
and storm sails of leather. For light winds he 
unfurled damask and silk, as common in his 
day as cotton is in ours,' bringing from afar 
the jewels and precious stones, the gold, the in¬ 
cense and the ivory of the East. He steered by 
the stars in fearless glee. He whistled to the 
winds and he sang to the waves, obtaining re¬ 
sponses from each, for they were his constant 
companions, furnishing him perpetually with— 
Wind written music in the shrouds, 
And ballads without words; 
“Mute friendships with the stars and clouds, 
And love trysts with the birds.’’ 
G. A. J. 
Pennant Winners of 1907. 
The Long Island Sound Yacht Racing As¬ 
sociation has announced the winners in the 
various classes for 1907 racing as follows: . 
In the raceabout class Pretty Quick sailed in 
eleven races and scored a record of 75 per cent.; 
Rascal III. was second with a percentage of 
70.6; Chinook was third with a percentage of 
60.5. 
The regular classes P and N both failed to 
produce starters in enough races to qualify, and 
so did not score for championships. 
In class Q, Capsicum was the only boat to 
compete in the required number of races to 
score, so she gets the pennant in her class. 
Hamburg, in class R. had the same luck as 
Capsicum, and was the only one to qualify. 
This seems a pity, too, when you consider that 
there were quite a few entries in her class—but 
they were not raced in enough contests to be 
eligible for a prize. 
Grace, in the catboat class R, won the pen¬ 
nant, she, too, being the only one to qualify. 
There were no boats in cat or sloop class S 
sailed enough races to qualify. 
It certainly looks as if there were “some¬ 
thing rotten in Denmark,” as the saying is, 
when so few boats care to contest in the regular 
classes. Perhaps the reason will be apparent 
when we can get the report from the handicap 
class. That class certainly was a howling suc¬ 
cess and took the bulls of the racers that ordi¬ 
narily sailed in the regular class or, being out¬ 
lawed by the rule, stayed home and did not 
race at all. 
The special and one-design classes, however, 
did quite well, five of them qualifying, and nearly 
all with a goodly number of starters. _ 
In the New York 30ft. class Adelaide takes 
the pennant by a narrow margin of one per 
cent, from Alera. Adelaide’s percentage was 
*Hogarth, pages 212 - 213 . 
SAIL PLAN OF BOCCACCIO. 
