This wandering discussion presents a few of the difficulties that face the designer, the builder, and the operator of ships. Such difficulties are all but infinite in number, and constant vigilance is vital to the efficient operation of the ships of to-day. But so reliable have these great structures grown to be that one of the greatest—the _Mauretania_—while launched in 1907, was able after fifteen years of constant and efficient service consistently to defeat newer ships of greater size and greater power in her constant voyages to and fro across the Atlantic. Such results as this must be credited to the designer, the builder, and the officers and crews of these complicated structures of the sea. CHAPTER XIII SHIPPING LINES The development of ships has been largely influenced by competition. The ship that can make the quickest voyages can demand the highest freight rates for most things. Furthermore, a fast ship can make more voyages than a slow one, and the owner may make a greater profit because of the greater amount of freight handled. These factors, and others less evident, enter into the operation of ships. To-day great shipping lines control most of the earth’s merchant ships. As we know these lines they are a growth of hardly more than a hundred years, but thousands of years ago their counterparts existed. Phœnicia was the greatest trading nation of the ancient world. Ships sent out by the traders of Phœnicia sailed to every corner of the Mediterranean, and even went out into the Atlantic, where they braved the rough waters of the Bay of Biscay and sailed up the English Channel on their adventurous trading voyages. For every ship that sailed to distant parts, however, many remained nearer home, visiting ports but a little distance off, and returning with less romantic but equally important cargoes. Many merchants of Tyre, of Acre, and of Sidon were shipowners. Some sent their ships to Egypt, some to Greece, some to Sicily and Italy, some to the Bosphorus and the Black Sea. Some traded with Cyprus and the Ægean Isles, some with Asia Minor. Some again sent their ships to the Adriatic. It was only a few who risked their ships and cargoes on those long voyages to the ends of the world, out beyond the Pillars of Hercules, and north along the tide-washed coasts of western Europe to where the days were far longer in the summer than the nights, and where the winter nights left but little of the day. Naturally, the traders who were successful built other ships, and sent them in the same trade that had made their fortunes, for that was the trade they knew. If a ship-owner had had great success in sending his ships to the Bosphorus, the natural thing for him to do with any new ships he might build was to send them there. When he died and his son came to rule over the destinies of his business, what would be more natural than for him to continue to send his ships to the same part of the world?