The decoration of the bow and stern of the ship has existed for many hundreds of years; and though the figurehead was especially prominent during the Middle Ages, it is now fast disappearing both from sailing ships of commerce and from yachts also. On steamers it is hardly ever seen except on the steam yacht. The decorated stern, too, so prevalent up to the eighteenth century, has now vanished; although the final traces of this may be noticed in the old-fashioned architecture to which the modern Royal steam yachts of this country still cling, and in the gold beading which frequently ornaments the name of a steamship under her stern. In Northern latitudes we find the most extraordinary cases of historical obstinacy; the rig and hull of the Scandinavians have remained practically unaltered for some two or three thousand years. The very word “snekkja,” applied to the ancient longships of the Scandinavians, is still used to-day. Moreover, the “bonnet,” which was attached to the foot of the sail to give additional area—unlaced, of course, in dirty weather—was used by the Vikings; was adopted from them by the ships of mediæval England; and is still used to-day by the ships of Scandinavia, and in England by the Lowestoft “drifters” that go forth to fish in the North Sea, as well as by the pleasure and trading wherries that sail up and down the Norfolk Broads. Fig. 2 shows a Norwegian “jaegt,” with bonnet and bowlines. [Illustration: FIG. 2. NORWEGIAN “JAEGT.”] The influence of this dogged conservative spirit of the Norwegians is to be seen extending over Great Britain in other ways. No one who has visited the Orkney and Shetland Isles can have failed to have noticed the close similarity between their boats and those of the Norwegian. Until about forty years ago their fishing boat was exactly a Norwegian “yawl,” the most obvious descendant from the lines of a Viking ship. Indeed, until about the year 1860 all the larger fishing boats of the Shetlands were imported in boards direct from Norway ready for putting together at Lerwick. The type is still farther preserved in the whale-boats that are despatched from the mother ships in various parts of the world to harpoon the cachalot. And, not to weary the reader with yet more examples of the great influence which these Viking ships have had on the naval architecture of our country, it is interesting to remark that the latest fashion in yacht design is the so-called “canoe-stern” or “double-ender.” This, of course, derives its inspiration from the Norwegian ships of the present day; and, as we have already said, they in their turn have conservatively held to the models of their ancestors. Whether, as some have thought, the Viking “double-ender” can trace a direct descent from the ships of Egypt is a point that we must defer to another chapter.