The naval architects of that time must indeed have lacked as little that we could teach them in design nowadays as—we know from subsequent excavations—the shipbuilders of Viking times could learn from our shipbuilders of to-day. An additional proof of the wisdom and knowledge of the ancients is to be found in the rig of their ships. The squaresail of the Egyptians was very like that used subsequently by the Greeks and Romans, and afterwards by the Vikings and many of the Norwegian and Russian ships to-day. It survived, moreover, beyond the Middle Ages, the only important difference being that three and sometimes two additional masts were provided with squaresails, with a lateen sail on the mizzen and a spritsail and sprit topsail forward. Thus, though the headsails of a modern full-rigged ocean ship have been altered during the last hundred and fifty years, yet the arrangement of her lower courses is practically that of the single sail of the Egyptians, omitting for the present certain details which do not alter the method of harnessing the wind as a means of propulsion. They had in these early times learned the value of stretching a sail on yards. They had, besides, understood where to place backstays and a forestay to support the mast, and they had adopted the use of braces to the yards as well as of topping lifts. The eyes painted on the ships of the Greeks and Romans still survive to-day in the hawse holes on either side of a ship’s bow. And this belief of the ancients that by means of these eyes the vessel could see her way was but one article in the general creed still shared by every sailor, amateur and professional alike, that a ship, of all the creations of man, is indeed a living thing. Mr. F. T. Bullen, in a delightful little essay, has demonstrated the varying ways in which a ship will manifest her personality. In “The Way of the Ship” Mr. Bullen also remarks: “Kipling has done more, perhaps, than any other living writer to point out how certain fabrics of man’s construction become invested with individuality of an unmistakable kind, and of course so acute an observer cannot fail to notice how pre-eminently is this the case with ships.” Though you may build two ships on the same yard from the same plans by the same builder, yet their personalities are different. The yachtsmen who elect to have a one-design class know very well that though you may raffle as to the ownership of each ship, yet there will always be one or two of the fleet that will be superior to the rest. But the ancients were before the yachtsmen in discovering that a mere contrivance of wood and metal should have a distinct character of its own.