584 
Yachting Fixtures for 1908. 
MAY. 
23. New Rochelle Y. C. 
30. Harlem Y. C. annual. 
30. Indian Harbor Y. C._, spring. 
30. Bridgeport Y. C., spring. 
JUNE. 
C. Knickerbocker Y. C. 
13. Manhasset Bay Y. C. 
20. N. Y. A. C., Block Island race. 
20. Larchmont Y. C. 
23. Indian Harbor, cruise to New London. 
25. Seawanhaka Cor. Y. C., special. 
26. Seawanhaka Cor. Y. C., special. 
27. Seawanhaka Cor. Y. C., special. 
JULY. 
3. American*Y. C., annual. 
4. Larchmont Y. C., annual. 
4. Hartford Y. C., annual. 
11. Riverside Y. C., annual. 
18-25. Larchmont Y. C., race week. 
AUGUST. 
1. Indian Harbcr Y. C. 
8 . Horseshoe Harbor Y. C. 
8 . Corinthian of Stamford. 
15. Huguenot Y. C. 
15. Bridgeport Y. C. 
15. Hempstead Harbor Y. C. 
22. Stamford Y. C., annual. 
29. American Y. C., summer. 
29. .Northport Y. C., annual. 
SEPTEMBER. 
4. Seawanhaka Y. C., special. 
5. Seawanhaka Y. C. 
5. Hartford Y. C. 
5. New York Athletic Club. 
7. Larchmont Y. C. 
7. Norwalk Y. C. 
7. Sachem’s Head Y. C. 
10. Indian Harbor Y. C., sweepstakes championship. 
12. Indian Hirbcr Y. C., fall. 
19. Larchmont Y. C. 
19. Manhasset Bay Y. C. 
26. Handicap Class, annual. 
The Origin of the Sail. 
If sails are not ancient, why is it so difficult 
to learn anything about them? For the name 
of the man or woman who invented the topsails 
of a thousand-ton ship you may- put me down 
to supply the cognomen of the inventor of the 
first turbine engine ever used by the ancients, 
the date of the invention, and the practical uses 
to which it was put. as well as the residence of 
the inventor. 1 learned all that without diffi¬ 
culty more than forty years ago. I have been 
seeking the inventor of sails for five years and 
all the gain is represented by papyrus mosquito 
netting, the old lady's gravy-boat and her door 
mat. Una declares that lie “sailed far to the 
North," but does any one imagine that he 
"sailed” as our pianolean-Pacific fleet is doing 
just because we happen to know who invented 
steam? Who cares how many door mats were 
confiscated in the interest of frog-pond naviga¬ 
tors. What was the maritime world doing some 
twenty thousand years ago, before the days of 
the most venerable patriarchs were numbered 
and the Old Testament traditions had found 
their way to preservation on “menhirs,” “dol¬ 
mens” and “coromlechs,” solitary upright 
stones, slabs upon uprights, and stone circles? 
Paton says: "In the light of recent archaeo¬ 
logical research, this is comparatively modern 
history,” but my classification of it as belong¬ 
ing to the middle ages has been ridiculed by 
the boy who took his grandmother’s gravy-boat 
and the door mat- only to be lost in the middle 
of the pond. "Dear me!” says the old lady, his 
grandmother, “how venturesome boys will be!” 
Arabia overflowed with population about 
every thousand years and disgorged “them upon 
the ajacent lands,” 1 driving the Semites before 
them at each incursion. Babylonia was thus 
peopled three thousand five hundred years be¬ 
fore our era commenced. 2 
We meet people occasionally who can learn 
by induction, but the average man has to suffer 
the pang of having a fact shot through him and 
sometimes even then he won’t come out of his 
pipe-dream until he is shaken. Arabs had only 
ships of the desert, had they? Then tell me how 
they managed to get the distinctive title into 
their primitive (?) language. . Look up the 
origin of the word “felucca” and explain the 
quran text which describes the commercial re- 
'Paton's “Syria ami Palestine.” page 7. 
HVinckler’s “Geschichte Israels,” page 12$. 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
lations of Aribi navigators. Why did they over¬ 
throw and sack the sacred city itself if it was 
not for the sake of securing a monopoly of the 
trade passing through the sea miscalled red. 
Jehoram’s family was kidnapped. “Judah was 
thus reduced to such an extremity that the end 
of its national existence seemed imminent.” 3 
Aribi’s queen sent presents under hatches to 
the reigning monarch. Zabibi had her own rea¬ 
sons for so doing. Tiglath-pileser’s conquest 
was formidable. Damascus recognized his power 
by similar tribute about 739. Herodotus in¬ 
forms us that an unsuccessful attempt was made 
to capture the trade of the east and west by 
cutting a canal from the river to the sea before 
608. Arabia had a large trade at that date. 
India was her best customer. Necho the Sec¬ 
ond did not delve deep enough. Nile flowed on 
undiminished. The Red Sea continued to float 
its western argosies. This Dutch Gap canal 
scheme failed entirely. Ben Butler Necho set 
out to conquer land routes and the mariner 
sailed to and fro in safety. “Babylon is fallen!” 
Arabia comes to her own. Geshem rules ashore 
and afloat. All is well! It is time that such a 
consummation took place, and there are portents 
on the horizon of "the center of the circle” in 
various camp's and “spheres of influence,” which 
indicate that “the sick man” will shift his tents 
to the Tartar side of the Hellespont. Arabia, 
-Sea 
Anatolia and the valleys of sweet water will 
smile again when that pestilential and ‘•innumer¬ 
able caravan” resumes its march to the seat of 
its original domain. 
Arabia in ancient times was the birth-place of 
civilization, the cradle of empires, the heart of 
culture, the soul of Christendom! No other 
language contains such verse, no other poets 
won such honors or such wealth. The sums 
that were paid successful contestants would ruin 
modern publishers and set the world by the ears 
in literary strife. 
Time has wrought mighty changes in its coast 
line, and the cities that once enveloped its mari¬ 
time importance have perished in the hurricane 
sands, or have been left so far inland that they 
are no longer commercial entrepots of world¬ 
wide fame, while their ruins speak an eloquent 
eulogy on vanished power. Damascus, instead 
of having been the oldest city in the world, as 
Moslem sages teach, is only the youngest of 
the old. Gaza once stood on the coast and had 
a good harbor. It is now two miles inland. 
Libya, too, has touched bottom and the black- 
coral which lines the west coast of “Araby the 
blest” is a mute expostulation of nature herself 
in opposition to the deforesting which went on 
so ruinously for uncounted ages. To compre¬ 
hend these changes one must visit the coast 
and mark the tideless lapse of waves that once 
washed the walls of capitals of vanished empires. 
Cvrene is ten miles from the seashore now. but 
in old times it was not so far and a street of 
magnificent toijibs led to its handsome port, 
which is now a forgotten village, sand-swept 
and shallow, of no importance whatever. 
Greater still are the changes that have come 
over the river delta. In old times there was no 
isthmus. The two seas met in a wide, deep 
“Payton’s “Syria and Palestine,” page 219. 
[April ii, 1908. 
channel and ships other than those of the desert 
passed the strait without detention. Suez is 
now a gulf. In Solomon’s time, about a thou¬ 
sand years before our era began, it was an open 
roadstead where his sixty ships, that were built 
at one time for the eastern trade, while the con¬ 
struction of the temple was progressing under 
his vigilant eye, sailed in squadron with top¬ 
sails fast “asleep” and gonfalons gaily fluttering. 
Arabia has never been triangulated. Egypt, in 
spite of British occupation almost a century, 
has only been surveyed in isolated patches con¬ 
tiguous to the sea. Oman, of all the peninsular 
Arab oases, has the “most abundant fertility, is 
the most self-dependent—and probably most 
nearly represents now what the best tracts were 
before the preaching of” 4 a fatalistic religion 
began. 
"Bold and skilful navigators and fishermen • 
possess the flourishing ports” 3 as they once 
possessed the capitals o fthe immense empire. 
Lohar, Sur, Maskiat, Barka and a few scattered 
harbors along the fringe of fertility, which over¬ 
looks that eastern gulf once owned by Arabs, 
but now geographically relegated to Persian 
influence, constituted the most important of 
these. 
The dotted portions on the map herewith in¬ 
dicate the fragmentary nature of such surveys 
a ? have been made. They also show a com¬ 
parative line of shifting sands. 
"Happy Arabia of the ancient geographers 
is also shown. When migration closed the old 
overland route between the east and west, com¬ 
mercial interests were obliged to follow the safe, 
but longer and more difficult courses by sea. 
Canaanitic restlessness thus induced the rise of 
a new kingdom, whose magnificent remains were 
not discovered until very recently. Halevy pre¬ 
pared us for it to some extent. Glaser made 
the exhibit complete by discovering eight thou¬ 
sand inscriptions which confirm the ancient 
geographers and prove “a striking evidence of 
the changed political situation” and the exist¬ 
ence of that long-sought empire of the south 
which “must have flourished about the middle 
of the second millennium.” 0 Whosoever has 
not read these two authors, therefore, knows 
very little of the history which made ancient 
shipping almost as renowned as the clippers of 
1850. But the details are meager and unsatis- • 
factory as yet. Many of the inscriptions are 
so ancient that a key for adequate translation 
cannot be found. It will be discovered eventu¬ 
ally, and then we shall know who built the 
ships as well as who manned and officered them. 
And per contra we already know that the tribe 
of Zakkala settled in the north, while Philis¬ 
tines possessed the entire coast as far as the land 
of the Sphinx. Carmel was the eastern limit 
of their domain. They built ships and traversed 
wide seas with impunity. So also did the 
Zakkalas. A recently discovered papyrus 
golenischeff, bearing date “in the fifth year”— 
1070—written by a voyager who was sent after 
timber, as fat; as the holy land contains history. 
Palestine was under the rule of the first king. 
1 anis was his seat. Wen-Amen, who wrote the 
account, presented his credentials and asked for 
a ship to convey him. Smendes, the king, 
granted the request, and after waiting a month, 
the narrator embarked. Dor was his first land¬ 
ing place. During the ensuing night one of his 
crew made off with a pound of gold and more 
than six pounds of silver. This treasure was 
part of the fund to be used in the purchase of 
timber. After nine days lie sailed without re¬ 
covering his loss. Tyre was reached. Gebal 
also welcomed him in due time. On his way 
thither he fell in with a ship of the Zakkala 
tribe, and suspecting the thief to be on board, he 
overhauled and searched the stranger, finding 
six pounds of silver which he confiscated. After 
"five months and a day” another ship arrived 
with more money, many presents and five hun¬ 
dred rolls of papyrus, designed undoubtedly for 
sailcloth, all of which the king graciously ac¬ 
cepted. 
[to be continued.] 
“TIogarth s “Nearer Hast,” page 2GG. The tracings are 
also from this work. 
■'•Ibid. 
“Paton, page 65. 
