The Tapestry represents these preparations. In the compartment which we last noticed William is accompanied by his half-brother Odo, who is busily employed in issuing orders to the master carpenter. This functionary holds a peculiarly shaped axe in his hand, of which there are some examples in the illustrations to _Cædmon’s Paraphrase_. The superscription is, HIC WILLELM DUX JUSSIT NAVES EDIFICARE--Here Duke William issues orders for the building of ships. Next we see the execution of the orders. Trees are being felled, and the planks prepared. Presently the ships have assumed their proper shape, and then we see them being drawn down to the shore. This operation is effected by means of a rope passed through a pulley inserted in a post driven into the shore below the water mark. The legend is HIC TRAHUNT NAVES AD MARE--Here they draw the vessels to the sea. Afterwards the stores and ammunition are taken on board, and when all is ready the horses and troops embark. This may be a fitting place in which to introduce some observations upon the ships and armour of the Normans. The vessels of this period were of small burden. This is proved by the fact that they were drawn down to the sea, after being built, in the manner shown in the Tapestry. The _Domesday Book_ establishes the same thing. There we find it stated that Dover and Sandwich (and probably the other Cinque Ports also) were severally [Illustration: PLATE IX.] obliged to furnish the King with twenty ships for fifteen days, once every year, each vessel having a crew of twenty-one persons.[71] The gunwale of the vessels was low. In the Tapestry (_Plate X._) we see them landing the horses, by making them leap over the sides of the ships on to the shore. On the voyage the gunwale was practically heightened by placing the shields of the soldiers along the sides of the vessel, one shield partly lying over another. The prow and stern of the ships, which are the same in form, are a good deal elevated, and are usually decorated with the head of a dragon, lion, bull, or some fanciful figure. We have several descriptions of the ship in which William sailed on his ever-memorable expedition. Wace says, “The Duke placed a lantern on the mast of his ship, that the other ships might see it, and hold their course after it. At the summit was a vane of brass gilt. On the head of the ship, in the front which mariners call the prow, there was a figure of a child in brass, bearing an arrow with a bended bow. His face was turned towards England, and thither he looked, as though he was about to shoot.”[72] In an ancient MS. preserved in the British Museum, and printed in the Appendix of Lyttleton’s _Henry II._,[73] we are told that this figure pointed towards England with his right fore-finger, and held to his mouth an ivory horn with his left hand. With this description the Tapestry nearly agrees; the figure is, however, placed not on the prow, but at the stern of the vessel. The lamp would only be