s
construction out of blocks of acacia wood pinned together, the old-world
fashion of building described by Herodotus. The _gaiassa_ and _dahabiah_
are too large to be classed as boats, but they and their smaller sisters
follow the Arab type in build and rig.

It is noteworthy that nothing apparently of the ancient Egyptian or
classical methods of build survives in the Mediterranean, while the
records of the development of boat-building in the middle ages are
meagre and confusing. The best illustrations of ancient methods of
construction, and of ancient seamanship, are to be found, if anywhere,
in the East, that conservative storehouse of types and fashions, to
which they were either communicated, or from which they were borrowed,
by Egyptians or Phoenicians, from whom they were afterwards copied by
Greeks and Romans.

In the Mediterranean the chief characteristics of the types belonging to
it are "carvel-build, high bow, round stern and deep rudder hung on
stern post outside the vessel."

In the eastern basin the long-bowed wide-sterned _caique_ of the
Bosporus is perhaps the type of boat best known, but both Greek and
Italian waters abound with an unnumbered variety of boats of "beautiful
lines and great carrying power." In the Adriatic, the Venetian gondola,
and the light craft generally, are of the type developed from the raft,
flat-bottomed, and capable of navigating shallow waters with minimum of
draught and maximum of load.

In the western basin the majority of the smaller vessels are of the
sharp-sterned build. Upon the boats of the _felucca_ class, long vessels
with easy lines and low free-board, suitable for rowing as well as
sailing, the influence of the long galley of the middle ages was
apparent. In Genoese waters at the beginning of the 19th century there
were single-decked rowing vessels, which preserved the name of galley,
and were said to be the descendants of the Liburnians that defeated the
many-banked vessels of Antonius at Actium. But the introduction of steam
vessels has already relegated into obscurity these memorials of the
past.

Along the Riviera and the Spanish coast a type of boat is noticeable
which is peculiar for the inward curve of both stem and stern from a
keel which has considerable camber, enabling them to be beached in a
heavy surf.

On the Douro, in Portugal, it is said that the boats which may be seen
laden with casks of wine, trailing behind them an enormously long
steeri