Now this method of stretching a sail is not inefficient. The cloth can be held more or less flat, and such a sail could, if the hull of the ship were so constructed as almost to prevent lateral motion, propel the hull in the direction it was pointed, even though that direction were at right angles to the wind. If the hull were properly designed, such a sail might readily be made to propel the hull at a little less than at right angles, and, once that were done, the ship would actually be making headway against the wind. It is quite conceivable that the Egyptians had perfected this art—not, perhaps, with the sail I have mentioned, but with a later development of this sail when the lower spar had disappeared and the upper spar had become greatly elongated and was set at an angle to the mast, so that from it depended a great triangular sail, called, now, a lateen sail. But authorities differ, and although there has been much argument as to whether Roman ships of a much later date—for instance, the one in which St. Paul was shipwrecked—could sail so as to make good a course even slightly against the wind, the argument has still remained only an argument, with neither side definitely able to make its case. And this, it seems to me, proves that while perhaps under ideal conditions and with some ships this highly important end was sometimes gained, nevertheless, the ancients were not, by and large, able to sail any course save when the wind was blowing from some angle of the half circle toward the centre of which the ship’s stern was pointed, or, in the language of the sea, when the wind was “abeam” or “abaft the beam.” [Illustration: A ROMAN SHIP _Although this ship was small the Romans built many that were not surpassed for 1,700 years, and it was not until the 19th Century was well advanced that the larger Roman ships were greatly surpassed in size._ ]