Although it is now thought by some Egyptologists that Queen Hatshopsitu did not send an expedition to Punt, but that she was only copying the expedition of the eleventh Dynasty, and that these Punt reliefs are merely replicas of other reliefs still to be discovered in the older temple, depicting an expedition under Nebkheruna, yet it is a doubtful point and by no means settled by critics. But supposing these are the ships of the Egyptian Queen of the eighteenth Dynasty, they are seen with fifteen oarsmen a side, whilst two look-out men are standing forward in a kind of open-work forecastle. The general shape of the ship by now has become considerably modified. Whilst there is still considerable overhang both at bow and stern, yet she is long on the waterline. The bow resembles nothing so much as that of a modern gondola. There is a beautiful line sweeping up aft to a raised poop with an ornamentation curving gracefully inboard to another open-work castle or cabin. These illustrations of the eighteenth Dynasty show how thoroughly the Egyptians had mastered the art of shipbuilding. When a ship is sailing on the sea, she is thrown up by the motion of the waters till she rests pivoted on the crest of a wave. The middle of the ship is thus supported, but the bow and stern, not being waterborne, have a tendency to droop while the centre of the ship tends to bulge up. This is technically known among naval architects as “hogging.” In the case of ships with an enormous overhang, unsupported by water, such as was the case of the Egyptian ships and is now the fashion with our modern yachts, this hogging would need to be guarded against. Only recently the writer saw on the south coast a modern yacht with no beam but considerable length and overhang. She had been badly built and the “hogging” was very noticeable a little forward of amidships. Her skipper gave her a very bad name altogether. In the Hatshopsitu ships we see the “hogging” strain guarded against by a powerful truss of thick rope. This truss leads from forward, sometimes being bound round—undergirding—the prow: sometimes it is made fast inside, perhaps to the deck or to the floors. It then leads aft, being stretched on forked posts until it reaches the mast, where it is wound round in a sort of clove-hitch, and then continues aft again being stretched on other forked posts until it is finally girded round the counter. This truss was as large as a man’s waist, and has been calculated by Commander T. M. Barber of the United States’ Navy to have been able to withstand a strain of over 300 tons.[5]