Thus, we have in the fact of the Holy Land a magnetic attraction for the ship. In order to carry armies and horses and pilgrims, whether from England or Venice, to the coast of Syria, you must needs have large numbers of ships, and of fair size and seaworthiness. This series of voyages created also a much larger body of seamen and amassed a tremendous amount of sea-knowledge from experience. In a word, then, it was a new and enormous impetus to the development of the world’s Mercantile Marine, as opposed to the purely warlike fast-moving naval galley. The demand now was for tonnage—to carry human beings as well as goods. Thus, notwithstanding that the crusades originated from a strictly religious motive, actually they exercised a most remarkable stimulus on trade, shipping and travel. Men who had never been previously outside their own city or village became acquainted with the sea, strange ships, new lands and novel ideas. They returned home with fresh aspirations, the desire to carry on extended commerce, and the realisation that shipping was the key to future riches. To trace the fitting out of all the crusades would be to go outside the scope of our immediate subject, but it is enough if we look for a moment at the direct effect crusading had on the Venetian shipping industry. The gates, so to speak, whence middle Europe could gain access to the Holy Land were Venice, Genoa and Marseilles. Seven years after Richard Cœur de Lion had made the truce with Saladin and left Palestine, a new crusade was being prepared for; and inasmuch as Venice was so distinguished a seaport, envoys came to arrange for large quantities of shipping. Landsmen knew practically nothing about the sea and ships. They were no better informed than the farmer of to-day resident all his life in the middle of the United States; so they arrived asking for advice, information and generally to be put in the way of obtaining tonnage sufficient to carry 4500 knights, 9000 squires and 20,000 men-at-arms. This was no small order, even for Venice, quite apart from the further request for fifty armed galleys to accompany and protect the expedition. It meant, in fact, the creation of an immense Mercantile Marine at really quite short notice. Indeed it was comparatively a much bigger task than the sudden demand for tonnage in 1917 and 1918, when the thousands and thousands of soldiers had to be packed into steamships and brought from North America to Europe.