resistance they were able to offer to the Danes. It is true that Alfred had large ships of war built in order to protect the coasts; but he was obliged to man them, in part at least, with Frisians. We are further told that these ships were much larger than those of the Danes. Yet the history of the tenth and eleventh centuries affords no proof that these ships were able in the long run to prevent the conquests of the Danes, or that they served to increase the Anglo-Saxon skill in seamanship.

Even the Greeks and Romans, however much they distinguished themselves in other ways, as in literature and art, did not make any remarkable progress in seamanship. Their navigation chiefly consisted of trips along the coast or voyages across the Mediterranean; and if an adventurer was now and then bold enough to pass the Pillars of Hercules, or Straits of Gibraltar, out into the Atlantic Ocean, in order to sail along the west coast of Europe to the British Isles, or countries still farther north, it was regarded as a great exploit. Regular voyages thither were scarcely known; nor do the Greek and Roman ships appear to have been well adapted to keep the sea in the wide and stormy Atlantic.

It was reserved for a land washed by the waters of that ocean-the Scandinavian North-to build the first large "sea-going" ships, capable not merely of successfully conveying, in calm weather, and under favourable circumstances, a solitary daring navigator over the Atlantic, but of affording, in spite of storm and tempest, a secure passage over its enormous waves. It is only by duly considering how much experience and talent must have been exerted, and, above all, how many calculations must have been made previous to the building of such a vessel, and before the art could be acquired of steering it with safety through breakers and in storms, that we shall perceive how much it redounds to the honour of Scandinavia to have made these great and most important advances; which, by founding modern navigation, by extending commercial intercourse to a degree before unknown, and by

thus uniting parts of the globe which were previously separated, may be said in a manner to have changed the face of the world.

Even before the time when the Danes conquered England, the Northmen had long possessed large and splendid sea-going ships. The Norwegians, in particular, were then constantly making voyages across the Atlantic, to the Shetland Isles, Iceland, and Greenland; nay, they undoubtedly reached the continent of America several times; of which Scandinavian and German historical traditions, as well as internal probabilities, bear witness. For, first, it was a natural consequence that a people who could navigate the dangerous and ice-bound sea that surrounds the coast of Greenland, and who could establish considerable colonies both in north and south Greenland-traces of which are still preserved by runic inscriptions, ruins of churches, and the foundations of numerous houses-should also be able to sail to the coast of America, the navigation to. which was always attended with less danger. And, again, it would have been very strange if the Northmen, who sailed without a compass, should always have succeeded in reaching Greenland, and never have been driven by storms to the neighbouring coast of America. It was, besides, just in this manner, according to the statements of history, that America was first discovered. It is quite another matter whether traces of these early visits of the Scandinavians could really be still found in America, which there is good reason to doubt.

The above-mentioned voyages, in the ninth and tenth centuries, are sufficient proofs of the excellence of the Scandinavian ships. It is not, therefore, to be regarded as pure exaggeration if the Sagas use strong expressions in celebrating the war-ships of that time, particularly the galleys, or, as they were called, long ships; and amongst others that magnificent royal vessel "Ormen hin Lange" (the long snake), which bore the Norwegian king, Olaf Trygvesön, in the celebrated sea-fight of Svöldr (near

Greifswald) in the year 1000. These long ships were also called "Dragons," because the stems were frequently ornamented with carved, and even gilded, images of dragons; or else were beheld there figures of vultures, lions, and other animals, ornamented with gold. These long ships. had sometimes crews of several hundred men. Other, and partly smaller, ships had different names, such as "snekken," "barden," "skeiden," "karven," "barken," and several others. Both Scandinavian and English chronicles dwell on the description of the splendour with which the fleets of the Danish conquerors, Svend and Canute, were adorned. Magnificent images glittered on the prows; the sails were worked, or embroidered, with gold; the ropes were of a purple colour; and on the top of the gilded masts sat curiously-carved images of birds, which spread out their wings to the breeze.

With the exception of very imperfect representations carved on rocks and runic stones, there are no images left in the countries of Scandinavia of these ships of the olden time. But the celebrated tapestry at Bayeux, in Normandy, on which the conquest of England by the Normans is depicted, is a contemporary evidence of the appearance of the Normanic ships; and the accompanying wood-cut taken from it, representing probably the ship in which William the Conqueror himself sailed, will clearly prove how splendid they really must have been. Both this and

the rest of the Norman ships in the tapestry perfectly agree with the contemporary Danish and Norwegian ships, just as we know them from the Sagas, even to the shields hung out along the bulwarks. This, however, is nothing more than what one might naturally expect, since the Normans and Danes, on the conquest of Normandy, must have brought such ships with them, as well as that art of ship-building which they afterwards carried to greater perfection. For this, however, they found no models in the wretched vessels of the Franks and Bretons. But their steady connection with the Scandinavian fatherlands, at

all events through the Danes and Norwegians in England, communicated to them those improvements in the form and arrangement of ships which the very extensive shipbuilding of the Northmen, and their long and uninterrupted voyages to Iceland and Greenland, must gradually

have produced. That influence on maritime affairs, which, on the whole, was exercised by the Scandinavian settlers in Normandy, showed itself also in the circumstance

that Scandinavian names of ships, together with other maritime terms, passed into the Romance language; as, for instance, flotte (Dan., Flaade; Eng., fleet), verec (Dan., Vrag; Eng., wreck), bord (Dan., Skibsborde, Rand; Eng., ship-board), windas (Dan., Vinde, Spil; Eng., windlass) mast (Dan., Mast; Eng., mast), sigler (Dan., Seile; Eng., sails), esturman (Dan., Styrmand; Eng., steersman), eschiper (Old Northern, skipa; Eng., equip), from which are derived the now commonly used French words, équiper, équipage, (and with us Danes likewise, eqvipere, Eqvipagemester; Eng., master of ordnance.)

As a consequence of the Danish-Norwegian immigra tions, the art of ship-building must also have necessarily developed itself in a similar manner in England, on whose eastern and north-western coasts the descendants of the Vikings had everywhere spread themselves, both by the sea and on the rivers. Christianity certainly put an end to the life of the Viking. "Söhaner" (sea-cocks) were no longer to be found, who scorned "to sleep by the corner of the hearth, or under sooty beams." But the Vikings' spirit was not therefore dead. The Scandinavian colonists could never entirely degenerate from their fathers, who had joyfully "ridden on the backs of the waves," and who in the icy sea, and on the Atlantic Ocean, had greeted the storm only as a welcome friend, which assisted the oars and speeded the merry passage. Among the Vikings were many like the Danish chief made prisoner by King Athelstane at the siege of York in 927. The King treated him well, and retained him in his hall more as an equal than a prisoner. But in a few days the chief fled and put out again to sea; for it was, the chronicle adds, just as impossible for him to live on land "as for the fish to live out of the water." The immediate descendants of such men, for whom a seafaring life was a necessity of their very nature, must have continued to dash through the water, particularly when, as in England, they were settled near seas and rivers. During all the internal dissensions and foreign.