There must be some good reason for a broad division like this, and it is found in the different conditions which eastern and western seamen had to meet. The lateen seems to have originated in the Indian Ocean, is seen wherever Arabs are, and has been taken eastward by the Malays as far into the South Sea Islands as their influence extended. It is a huge, triangular canvas extended at a steep angle by a long, flexible yard balanced across the mast to which it is loosely hung, and controlled by a sheet attached to the free corner. It is thus very lofty, and therefore suitable to a region of steady and usually light winds. This is the characteristic rig of the Arab dhow—a model that has come down from remote antiquity and is capable of excellent service on the northern and eastern coasts of Africa, where it prevails. It was probably in a small vessel of this kind that the Apostle Paul suffered shipwreck; and an outgrowth and perfection of it is the dahabiyeh of the Nile, now become famous as a tourists’ pleasure-boat, whose immensely lofty sail is precisely adapted to catch every faint breath that comes across the river from the deserts. Such sails are spread like the great pointed wings of an albatross over the narrow decks of the Malayan “flying proas” and other swift South Sea craft, and urge upon their fleet errands the xebecs, saics, feluccas, and other light craft of the Levant and Barbary coasts, identified with former piracy and modern smuggling, as well as with fishing and freighting. Some of these boats have two or three masts, the xebec and felucca being notable because of the curious forward rake of the foremast; and in that extremely picturesque Portuguese fishing-boat called the muleta there are, in addition to the big lateen, a huge free second sail ballooning out to leeward from the tip of the yard, and a host of little flying jibs forward, which somebody has well likened to a flock of birds hovering about the prow. Good examples of lateen-rigged boats may be seen in Louisiana, built and manned by the Greek, Maltese, and Sicilian fishermen. The difficulty of handling in rough or squally weather this long yard and expansive canvas makes it unsuitable for such weather as prevails in the western Mediterranean or on the Atlantic; and to meet these stormy and frequently changing conditions, and obtain a rig with which they could beat to windward, the earliest rough-water seamen devised square sails. What the rig of the ancient far-voyaging Phenician ships was we have no means of knowing, but the indications are that they carried lug sails, which appear to be the simplest and earliest of the “square” forms; that is, sails suspended from short cross-yards, and controlled by ropes (sheets) attached to their lower corners. Such at least were the sails of the Roman and Greek merchant and war vessels of the classical era, and they persist to-day in the local fishing-smacks of the stormy Adriatic.