Firm and lofty bulwarks rose along the ship’s sides, protecting the mariners from being swept off in tempests by the passing surge. On the bows again, there was usually a square tower furnished with lofty portals, through which the combatants, protected from annoyances on both flanks, poured, in close fight, their darts into the enemy’s ship, or rushed forward to board it. At the very front of the prow, where our bowsprit is now placed, arose an elegant winding scroll, which though projecting slightly beyond the hull, could never touch the corresponding part of the enemy’s galley until the iron or brazen beaks[1673] below had met and shattered each other. The rudder[1674] consisted of two paddles placed one on either side of the ship, which was impelled along by oar and sail. The row-ports of these galleys being somewhat capacious might, if left open, have shipped a great deal of water, on which account they were furnished with strong leather bags, in form like a woman’s breast, projecting outwards, nailed to the circle of the row-port, and fitting tight about the oar. The rowers, to render their condition more comfortable, were furnished with cushions or soft-dressed fleeces.[1675] ----- Footnote 1673: Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 552. Footnote 1674: Spallanzani in describing the preparations made by the Portuguese for the first doubling of the Cape of Good Hope, mentions, among other things, a double rudder, so “that in case one should be damaged there might be another to act.” Travels in the Two Sicilies, iv. 201. Footnote 1675: The sea-term ὑπηρέσιον which occurs in Thucydides, ii. 93, is very variously explained. Mitford (Hist. Greece, iii. 154) contends, that it means a sort of bag placed in the τρῆμα, or aperture through which the oar passed, and was designed to prevent the flowing in of the waves. This bag, however, as I have already remarked in pp. 289, 290, was called ἄσκωμα. Poll. ii. 154. Potter (ii. 136,) thinks it was a skin on which the rowers sat. Lilius Gyraldus, (De Navigiis, c. vi. p. 627,) supposes it to have been that part of the galley on which the oar rested, and sometimes signified the oar itself. The Greek scholiast on Thucydides, (t. v. p. 399,) agrees with Potter, saying, that it means a sheep-skin with the fleece which covered the rowers’ benches. -----