[Illustration] [Illustration: 2] Het varen met weynig volk, het nauw en zober behelpen in leeftocht en ons ingeboren zindelijkheid, die de schepen langdurend macht, doet den Nederlantschen scheepvaart bloeyen, en niet het scheepsfatzoen. ~Nicolas Witsen~, 1671.[4] These remarkable words are characteristic and show that something else than the determined forms of ships is necessary to make a people prosperous and great. If this were not so, our types of vessels, says Witsen, would have been copied immediately by other nations. Sobriety and cleanliness are two capital virtues of the Dutch race, but, beside these virtues, our ancestors possessed one other important quality: they were builders of economical ships and our present builders have preserved this quality. Let us hope, with full confidence, that this will always be so in the future. Witsen maintained--and this fact acquires a certain significance if it be compared with what goes before--that foreigners who have come to Holland to learn our art of shipbuilding, could not after returning home, imitate our processes. I am not surprised, therefore, to see these foreigners write that they could not use our architecture or our measures. Many a ship, says the author mentioned, has been analyzed and measured abroad, but never has it been imitated; nor have our builders ever harvested any praise for their work. What Witsen then says about the English is quite characteristic: “In deze braveeren zy (de Engelschen) opentlyk allen Landaert en wanen niemant huns gelyk in deze konst te hebben”[5]. He imputes this unfavorable judgment on the Dutch to the fact, that nothing relating to naval architecture has ever been published in the Netherlands. It will be seen, further on, that, as a matter of fact, people abroad hold another opinion. Data, which may not be doubted, teach us that, even in the highest antiquity, the peoples living on the shores of the Mediterranean were acquainted with navigation. Again, at the present time, the most savage, the least civilized nations, settled by the banks of rivers, had their boats, however primitive their forms may have been. Several ancient ships were exhumed in Northern Europe during the second half of the last century. It may be concluded from this that the people who lived near the water were familiar with navigation from the earliest times. Moreover, it is evident that the long, narrow “canoe” obtained from the hollowed out trunk of a tree was the oldest form of boat. The pole, which was the primitive mode of propulsion, was soon replaced by the paddle and the oar. Man, by nature, seeks his ease; hence there is no cause for astonishment that he should from the beginning have called the wind to assist him in moving over the water. This accessory means soon became the principal agent of propulsion.