After the squaresail had for so many centuries held sway among the earliest dwellers of the earth, the lateen began stealthily to assert itself as we saw in the first chapters. Although Holland set the example in the sixteenth century of cutting up the lateen shape into the cutter rig, yet in the Mediterranean, along the East Coast of Africa and in the Indian Ocean generally, the lateen has refused to be made obsolete. The illustration in Fig. 101 represents a Bombay yacht of the second half of the nineteenth century rigged with a couple of lateens, and masts that rake forward at a considerable angle. Every tourist to Egypt is familiar with the picturesque lateens and lofty yards of which Fig. 102, showing a fleet of these with a small Sibbick rater in between, affords a study in contrast between the conservative East and the progressive West. The sketch was made at Suez. The felucca in Fig. 103 is a well-known lateen type in the Mediterranean, with her white and green, her square stern and single deck. The sketch here shown has been made from a charming little model in the South Kensington Museum, and represents one of the familiar two-masters seen off the Spanish coast. The tack and sheets and rigging are shown so clearly that we need not stop to indicate them. In old paintings and prints we see that the felucca type in the Mediterranean developed into vessels of considerable tonnage with three masts. The Venetians and Greeks and Genoese, as well as the piratical Moors and the other Mediterranean inhabitants, used them both as cargo carriers and ships of war. They are in fact the lineal descendants of the ancient galleys. Further modifications include the addition of a jib, though the Southerner has not followed the universal Northern practice of transforming his lateen into a mainsail. Sometimes we find old prints showing a felucca with the addition also of a mizzen spritsail similar to that on the modern barge. The French signified by the word _brigantin_ a two-masted lateen-rigged galley with oars as auxiliary. But there came into use that compromise between lateen and squaresail that in Northern Europe we have seen to exist between the pure fore-and-after and the square-rigger. Thus, for instance, one finds ships rigged with a large lateen on the foremast, the mainmast being square-rigged with mainsail, topsail and t’gallant, while the mizzen has a lateen with square topsail. The reader who wishes to see the different varieties of lateen and lateen-plus-square rig is referred to Mr. Warington Smyth’s interesting volume “Mast and Sail,” while for details as to design and rigging he will find some valuable information in Admiral Paris’ “Souvenirs de Marine.” [Illustration: FIG. 104. HAILAM JUNK.] [Illustration: FIG. 105. CHINESE JUNK. _From the model in the South Kensington Museum._]