_In many parts of the world savage people have learned to build light frames over which they have stretched the best material available to them. The Indians of North America commonly utilize birch bark._] Imagine these toiling galley slaves, chained in hundreds to the crowded rowing benches, straining at the heavy oars. Tossed by the seas, they labour unceasingly, stroke on stroke, to the sound of a mallet falling in never-changing cadence on a block of wood. Hour on hour they strain, heartened occasionally by a few minutes’ rest. Their eyes are all but blinded by the sweat from their grimy brows. Their hands are calloused, their bodies misshapen from long toil on the rowers’ benches. Above them, on the wind-swept deck, they hear the clank of armed men, the slap of sandalled feet. A lookout calls to the officer in command—hurried steps—momentary silence—shouts and the sound of feet. A messenger appears in the stifling space below. The sharp clap of the mallet on the block increases its cadence. Faster and faster swing the oars. Furious and more furious is the pace. A whip in the hands of a brutal guard falls here and there on the naked backs of the helpless, straining forms. Their strength is waning, their breath is coming fast. A man collapses from the strain and pitches from his elevated seat, half suspended by the chain around his leg, his oar trailing and useless. From beyond their wooden walls they hear the muffled clank of the oars of the approaching enemy. Cries from on deck, and suddenly a crash. Broken oars are driven here and there. Screams and oaths and orders and a great upheaval. Water enters in a score of places. More screams—more oaths—cries for help to a score of pagan gods—the water covers all. A great last sigh and one more ship is gone: it is just a tiny incident in the history of ships. As I have said, the Greeks developed marine architecture to a very high point, and the bireme and trireme with which they began were the first of a long series of developments until ultimately ships of five, of eight, of even sixteen banks of oars are said to have been in use, and there is a story, which probably was a figment of someone’s imagination, of a vessel of forty banks! Such a ship may possibly have been suggested—may conceivably have been built—but it seems certain that she could never have been successful or practical. Carthage, that great enemy of Rome, was a city of traders—a city that depended on the sea for its wealth and, to a large extent, even for its sustenance. Rome, on the other hand, grew to considerable size without venturing on the sea. When she did first turn her attention to the water, as her continued expansion forced her to do, she found that Carthage crossed her course whichever way she turned. The result was war. But war between two cities separated by the width of the Mediterranean had to be fought largely on the sea, and Rome, inexperienced as a sea-going nation, was put to a severe test.