[1] Necessity has taught us naval architecture and the art of war, which give the means by which to dominate the nations. [2] That, in this country, in former times, when greater fear was felt of the dangers of the sea than is now the case when they are faced in all kinds of weather, people never put off from shore without first having settled their accounts, made their wills and partaken of the Holy Communion. In the old days, the sea was closed during the bad season. [3] The value of this science seems to me so great that none of my fellow countrymen can afford not to be acquainted with it, as navigation is the nerve and sinew of the nation. [Illustration: 1] The Egyptians were not a nation of mariners. Their navigation, at the beginning, was limited to the Nile alone; it was only later that they ventured out to sea, preceded and assisted by the Phœnicians. Their vessels were and continued to be river boats. The question of knowing whether the Egyptians borrowed the art of building them from the Babylonians, or whether their art was developed independently of any other is of little importance here and, furthermore, it cannot be solved by the nautical knowledge which we possess. (~Ermann~, p. 679.--Dr. ~Moritz Rühlmann~, pp. 25-33.) [Sidenote: II 1] That which is certain is that the Babylonians and the Egyptians had their vessels already in the most remote antiquity; this follows (_L’Anthropologie_, 1899, Vol. X, p. 517, and ~Holmes~, 1900, p. 9) from the decorations on ancient vases which are supposed to date from 6000 to 4000 years B. C. [Sidenote: II 2] Doubts have arisen at times--but wrongly in my opinion--as to the question of knowing whether the decorations in question really do represent vessels. Although the drawings are too primitive to furnish any data relating to the form of the boats, it can surely be said, however, that only vessels propelled by oars are there shown and that sailing vessels were probably still unknown at this time. The lines at the bottom of the boats, considered sometimes, but wrongly, as indicating fishing apparatus (_Recherches sur les Origines de l’Égypte_, ~De Morgan~, pp. 91 and 92), represent the propelling oars, and the long strokes at the stern of the boat, the steering oars. The boats were not moved forward by oars but by paddles, which is the oldest mode of the propulsion used, as can still be seen by the interrupted line of rowers found again, still later, among the Egyptians. The reasons for the almost exclusive use of the oar or the paddle for propelling boats are to be sought in the mobility of the bottom and hence in variations of the navigable passages of the Nile. To these should also be added the great changes in the height of the water and the sudden dead calms. Sails were used later, it is true, but rowing and towing still continued to be employed along with the sails.