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Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
LEGALLY MATED
Mercy Hills Pack Book Five
ANN-KATRIN BYRDE
 Illustrated by
ANA J. PHOENIX
© 2017 Ann-Katrin Byrde
All rights reserved. This book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation
of international copyright law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines, and/or imprisonment. Any eBook format cannot
be legally loaned or given to others. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the
Publisher, except where permitted by law.
This is a work of fiction. All resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
This ebook contains sexually explicit scenes and adult language and may be considered offensive to some readers. Please don’t read if
you are under eighteen.

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For all my friends and supporters in the Byrde House, with your cheers, your jokes, and your cake!
I hope you enjoy Laine’s and Garrick’s story.

And many thanks to April, Ann, and Christina (Pip), who loaned their names and their
personalities to the new children in the story.
 C ONTE NTS

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
About Ann-Katrin
Like This Story?
Other Books by Ann-Katrin
 CHA P TER 1

I walked into the office I was sharing with Cas, took one look at the explosion of paper covering his
table, my table, and the spare one jammed in the corner of the room, and stopped dead in my
tracks.
"Really?" I muttered, and turned sideways to squeeze between the two tables. I was supposed to
be going into the city tomorrow, and I had work here I needed to get done or I’d feel guilty the whole
time I was away. But Cas was like fog and he tended to spread out to fill the entire area if you didn’t
put some limits on him.
Once I got around the end of my table, I could put my briefcase down in the corner and try to
salvage some space to finish working on the discrimination claim one of the other packmembers had
asked me to file for him. I was pretty proud of him, proud of the whole pack really. Since Abel and
then Quin had taken over, it seemed we were bellying up for less and less of the discrimination and
micro-aggressions that were a daily part of life for a shifter.
I'd taken the paperwork home with me yesterday to fill out while I watched a movie in my tiny
apartment, rather than sit in my cramped office to work on them while Cas cursed and talked to
himself in the other corner like a mad wolf. It was a bachelor style, just one large room and a
bathroom, but even that was a lot to have as a single shifter. We'd been so crowded here for so long—
I'd never known Mercy Hills when it wasn't crowded. But I'd been lucky when I moved back to the
enclave after I graduated law school--I should have been put in bachelor's quarters, but at that point, I
was older than everyone else living on those floors and housing had pulled some strings and let me
jump the line to an apartment recently vacated by a couple with a new baby.
Which had been a massive relief--unlike most of the pack, I got twitchy at just the thought of
taking my clothes off in front of other people. The only person who'd never elicited that response
from me was Laine.
I skirted the end of the table without knocking any of Cas's stacks of receipts and notes onto the
floor, only to realize he'd also covered the seat of my chair with... it looked like part of the pack's
yearly tax return. I could very easily have moved it, but remembering the mood Cas was in yesterday
slowed down my instinct to just dump everything on the floor and reclaim my territory. That, and I
knew what kind of rage I could end up in if someone disturbed my carefully organized piles of
paperwork.
It would be a shitty thing to do, so I sighed and turned back toward the door. I could do most of
what I needed to do from the library, and what I couldn't, I could probably borrow Bax's office
upstairs for.
I met Cas in the tiny green space between our offices and the main pack building. "Hey, sorry
about all the paperwork. I was looking at a bunch of penalties that have been getting applied against
the pack and I'm trying to get a few years reassessed," he said cheerfully. "See if I can't save the pack
some money and earn my keep. What are you up to today?"
"Discrimination claim," I said, and wiggled my briefcase. "Then I'm looking over the contract
with the new meat supplier."
"Are we replacing the big guys?"
I shook my head. "Abel's been in Quin's ears about Bax's venison and Bax found a place that
wholesales game--rabbit, deer, buffalo. It's feels like the Chicken Case again," I told him, referencing
a relatively famous civil case that boiled down to the definition of what a chicken actually was.
Cas laughed. "Make sure you know what a buffalo is before you start negotiating,'" he said. "You
coming to Full Moon tonight?"
I shrugged. "I don't know. I'm not ferociously social like some lawyers I know."
"It'll be fun. Alexandra has a cousin visiting from Honisloonz, I hear she likes 'em nerdy."
I laughed awkwardly, "Thanks, but I can find my own dates."
"You are so damn self-sufficient." He shook his head at me, but he knew better than to press the
issue. I wasn't into big parties, or the kind of social sex that most of the pack enjoyed. Not that I didn't
enjoy sex, but it wasn't a part of me that I could share with the pack. Not as things stood now.
A boxy deep red station wagon pulled around the corner, heading in our direction. "Do you
recognize that car?"
Cas turned around to look and his eyes went wide. He grabbed me and pulled me into the dubious
concealment of a ragged shrub at the side of the path. "I don't know the car, but I know who's in it."
“Who?” And why did they make Cas, sarcastic, no-fucks-given Cas, want to hide in the bushes
like a naughty pup?
“It’s my mother,” he said in a tone of immense disgust. “She’s been threatening to move here for a
while and—holy shit!”
We watched through the leaves as bag after bag was evicted from the back of the station wagon.
“Damn.” Cas pulled out his phone and called someone. “She’s here.” He paused to listen to the
other person, then said, “Our mother.” Another pause, and then Cas said, “You owe me for this.” He
turned off the phone and shoved it into his pocket again. “We who are about to die salute you,” he
muttered, I thought facetiously, then he stood up and strode out into the open to meet the woman just
stepping out of the car. “Good morning, Mom.” He kissed her cheek, but moved casually to stand
between her and the door. “What are you doing here?”
“That’s a fine way to speak to your mother,” she said. Her accent was more pronounced than his,
more Mercy Hills than Cas’s modulated lawyer’s tones. “Where are your brothers?”
“Probably working, since they didn’t know you were coming,” he said dryly. His eyes flicked
about the Park, looking, I guessed for either a distraction, or for Quin or Abel.
“A fine thing it would be if I had to make an appointment to see my boys.” She directed the shifter
with her to carry her bags into the building. “This is a very tall building. Was it a wise use of
resources to build something like this?”
“I don’t know,” Cas gritted out. “You’ll have to ask Abel. I’m sure he considered all his options.”
My jaw fell open and I gaped at them, desperately trying not to laugh. It was all so bizarre.
Movement in the corner of my eye caught my attention. Holland and Seosamh, talking animatedly
about something as they walked back from dropping the older pups off at school. The new baby hung
against his chest in some sort of wrap or sling, like the one I’d seen Bax using over the years. Holland
made a laughing comment about something to do with photographers that went right over my head, and
then he noticed the car and the two shifters standing in front of the building.
I could almost see the word shit being repeated over and over again in Cas’s head.
“Hey, Cas, who’s this?” Holland asked, and smiled his professional smile. The one that made
everyone feel like his best friend, with a bit of friendly flirtation thrown in for variety.
“It’s Mom, Holland,” Cas said, his tone sick. “Mom, this is Holland, Quin’s mate.”
“So you’re Holland,” she said, looking him up and down in a way that made Holland’s shoulders
visibly tense. “Well, I can see why he was so set on you.” She walked up to him and reached for the
baby. “And here’s my baby!” she cooed, then frowned when Holland took an instinctive step back.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she snapped. “What do you think I’m going to do with him?” She reached for
the baby again, and this time Holland let her take him, though the waves of discomfort and confusion
pouring off him set all my danger signals blaring.
Mac’s truck came flying up the road and pulled up behind the station wagon. Abel and Bax
jumped out and Abel strode up to his mother. “Mom, why didn’t you tell us you were coming?”
Even I, not ever having met her, heard the undertone of so we could man the defenses.
“A mother can’t surprise her sons?” She looked Bax up and down in the exact same way she’d
looked at Holland. “Well, he’s another pretty one.” Then she’d rubbed Abel’s arm and whispered, but
loud enough that anyone within arm’s length could hear it, “You need to stop being so shallow. I
would have thought being Alpha had fixed that.”
I hid in my leafy disguise and watched with my mouth hanging open. Holy shit. Who spoke to an
Alpha that way? Or his Mate? Lysoon, there was going to be trouble, I was sure of it. I waited for
Holland to explode on her, but he must have been as much in shock as I was, because he just stared at
her for a long moment.
And then it came. He leaned over, took the baby from her, and said, “Welcome to Mercy Hills,
Veronica. Do make yourself at home,” in the sweetest Southern accent I’d ever heard. I knew enough
to recognize the implied judgment of Veronica’s rudeness. Did she?
Apparently.
She cast him a sharp glance, and then her smile broadened like a hunting grin. “I’m sure you’ll do
just fine making me feel at home.”
That didn’t look promising. More, it looked like Holland had just poured gasoline on a fire. I
fought the urge to run out and back him up—I couldn’t see any way I could do anything but make it all
worse.
Cas slipped up beside me—I’d been so focused on the threatened nuclear explosion in front of
me, I hadn’t seen him sneak off. “Fuck me,” he said. “This isn’t going to go well.”
“I never would have guessed,” I muttered at him. “Shouldn’t you be out there protecting your
brother’s mate?”
“I never do anything but make it worse,” Cas admitted, and I snorted a short laugh, because that
was entirely believable. He frowned at me. “Why aren’t you out there throwing yourself between
Holland and my mother?”
“I don’t practice Family Law,” I told him innocently, while watching the continued exchange of
pointed barbs, coated in sickly sweet Southern charm. Interesting that the shifter who’d brought
Veronica already had her bags out on the lawn in front of the doors, and was now waiting impatiently
by the driver’s door of the station wagon. It didn’t bode well, in my opinion.
“I hope Holland goes up one side of her and down the other,” Cas declared with all the glee of
Agatha planning a prank on her adopted father. “The explosion should be glorious.” He shook his
head. “This is why I’m never getting mated.”
 I watched Holland’s expression grow blanker and blanker as the conversation continued, and
Bax’s fade into the same pleasantly cheerful lines he used to put on all the time when he’d first
arrived in Mercy Hills. Abel looked frustrated, and then Quin came out the front doors. I couldn’t
hear what he said, but whatever he did made his mother throw up her chin and stalk past him into the
building.
“Shit, that’s done it,” Cas muttered. “So glad I’m the baby of the family. I don’t get half the
pressure that poor bastard has thrown at him.”
I looked at him in curiosity. “You don’t think he can handle it.”
Cas sighed. “I think there’s eight years and a different sire between me and Quin. There’s a damn
reason she gave him that high-falutin’ name and a whole lot more reasons why he went into the
military as soon as he got to be eighteen, and it wasn’t just to bring money home to the pack. Not all
of it anyway. He’s such a damn knight in shining armor.”
“Yeah, your family seems to have strong streak of that,” I said dryly.
“Not me,” Cas said firmly. “Good, they’re going in. I think I’m going to cancel on lunch with
Holland and Quin today.”
“Coward.”
Cas shook his head. “No. I just don’t need to be pecked to death by that old crow. She was bad
enough when she was Alpha’s Mate. Now that she isn’t, I expect she’s got all sorts of time on her
hands.” He threw me a meaningful look. “Don’t get me wrong—I love her. She’s my mother, and there
were lots of good days. But I love her better in another enclave.” And with that, he turned and headed
back toward our office.
I stood in the bushes for a few more minutes, watching my Alpha and his Mate, Abel and Bax.
Seosamh. They huddled in a tight group, talking intently. Knowing that four—five, really—they’d sort
it all out before things got out of hand.
Just in case, I was working in the library today.
 CHA P TER 2

T he next day, the pack’s latest junker car, a little hatchback tinkered into usefulness by Mac and
his buddies, pulled up in front of Laine’s house with only the mildest screech of brakes. I
suppressed a wince and wondered what the neighbors thought, then decided it probably paled in
comparison to Laine inviting a shifter to stay with him.
I’d begged a drive to be in town to use the law library and to do my two or three days per week of
research and other legal tasks that Laine made sure I got. It wasn’t a comfortable job, but it paid way
more than minimum wage and kept my skills sharp. And, it let me see Laine on a regular basis, which
as a good packmember shouldn’t have been as important as it felt, but there I was—maybe not so
good a packmember after all. “Thanks for the drive, Avery,” I said. “I feel bad making Duke run all
over the place for me, with three pups underfoot.”
“No, problem,” Avery replied cheerfully. “Man, I wish we could have houses like this.” He
glanced enviously along the street, with its neat squares of green grass and concrete drives, each
house a small island to itself. Private and personal, so different from pack life as an older bachelor.
Or a young one.
“Yeah, me too.” We didn’t have enough space in the enclave, not if we wanted to keep the semi-
forest at the north end of the enclosure. And that was something that no Alpha at Mercy Hills had ever
compromised on—shifters needed that space to run. It was as near the center of our cultural identity
as anything, and if they took that away, I wasn’t sure what would happen to us.
Probably the same thing that had happened in Rogue’s Hollow. By the time the army got done
there, there hadn’t been enough of the pack left to keep the enclave open, and its remaining members
had been dispersed to the nearby enclaves.
The closest any of Mercy Hills’ Alphas had come to bowing to the necessity of our survival had
been the gradual shift of the tree species from native evergreen and aspens to fruit-bearing orchard
trees. Apples, peaches, pears, cherries—anything that could be harvested and eaten.
I watched Avery drive away, then trudged up to the house and used my key to let myself in. I’d had
a key for close to two years now, since that awkwardly life-changing day when we’d won a close-
fought case and somewhere in the middle of the celebration, I’d ended up drunk enough to finally pay
attention to Laine’s interest in me. I smiled as I closed Laine’s front door behind me and set my bag on
the floor at the bottom of the stairs before making myself comfortable in the living room.
One wall was taken up by an old upright piano that he’d bought and just had completely
refinished. It shone a deep golden brown in the sunlight slanting in through the window and I tapped a
key just to break the silence of the house, and to remind myself of him playing something classical for
me on it when he’d first brought it home. Laine was much more of a romantic than I was, but I didn’t
mind. One of us should be the romantic one in a relationship, I figured. It certainly wasn’t going to
be me.
According to Holland’s decree, I wasn’t supposed to be staying overnight here anymore, not until
we knew how it would affect the pack, but he was in court first thing tomorrow, and the last week
when I’d tried staying at the pack house, one of the twins had gotten something that could only be
identified as disgusting all over my pants and I’d ended up borrowing a suit from Laine. Not that
Laine had cared, but it scared the shit out of me wearing something that expensive.
That was top layer of the excuse, because my reasons for being here had more sides than a
stop sign.
Truthfully, I missed him. It was crazy and stupid and it couldn’t last—he was human and I was a
shifter. I’d done pretty well keeping a low profile up to the Green Moon disaster, but since then, I’d
been on the radar of both the pack and the humans. The whole thing was going to go south like
migrating birds at some point, I knew that, but Laine made me feel so good in so many ways, even if
you discounted the physical ones.
And I never discounted the physical ones.
Outside of the fact that we were, kind of, each other’s first lovers, he treated me like a lawyer. To
him, it didn’t matter that the best I could lay claim to was the title of paralegal, as things stood now,
and probably for the rest of my life. I didn’t have the right to take the bar and set up my own practice,
despite all the years in law school, the money spent, the hours of study.
It still amazed me that the pack had been willing to spend that money, knowing they’d get nothing
out of it. Because of that, I put the pack’s needs over everything else. It was only when it came to
Laine that the order of importance got kind of blurred.
But Laine discussed his cases with me like he would with his partners, argued about which
rulings to use in different situations and threw Latin legal terms at me like snowballs. So, while I
couldn’t be a lawyer in real life, he helped me pretend I was one. That alone would make it worth the
headache and the stress of balancing what I wanted and couldn’t have, with the risks of reaching for
what I could.
He also treated me like a person, which was, in some ways, worth more than the professional
respect. There were…issues, occasionally, in the practice, no matter that I was doing my best to be
helpful and keep a low profile. Some of the other paralegals refused to work with me, and I knew
production suffered for some of them when I was in the same room. I could feel their eyes on me, like
a rabbit must feel when they were being stalked. Laine just told me to ignore them, that they were
jealous, but I didn’t think it was going away and eventually I stopped bothering him about it. It was,
after all, my own problem and one I had to deal with on my own. No one ever said anything—well,
not much, and I got good at ignoring it pretty fast, but it was obvious to me that they found me alien
and frightening. So I kept my head down and worked twice as hard as anyone else in an effort to pay
back to Laine the trouble I was certain I caused him with his partners.
And then there was the other part, the more personal one.
Which was why I was tucking my tail and hoping no one noticed I wasn’t where I was supposed
to be tonight. Between one thing and another, Laine and I hadn’t had sex in over a month. And I wasn’t
waiting any longer.
He was getting groceries at the moment, so there was time to unpack and let the wrinkles fall out
of my suits. I only had two, which I thought was enough for a three day stay in town and which Laine
still thought absolutely paltry. But I hadn’t had any before I’d started working with him, and suits
were expensive. Especially where Laine liked to shop, which was so far out of my price range it
didn’t even make me sad not to shop there. I couldn’t fathom spending that much money on some cloth
stitched together in human shape.
I took my time over it, but he still wasn't home by the time I was done. And not that I was eager or
anything but—
“Hey, what’s taking you so long?” I said when he answered my call.
Laine chuckled and in the background I could hear the beeping of the cash registers. “Took me a
while figuring out what you’d eat.”
“I’m not that picky.” Laine ate weird things, like stuff I couldn’t even pronounce. It had been,
really, our one and only fight, and had ended with a negotiated settlement, on paper, that I would try
one new thing every time I came over. I’d made sure it contained a clause stating that every time I
came over started with my arrival in the city, not every single time I walked through his front door.
Ha! He’d thought he was going to get that one past me, but he didn’t keep me around just because
he couldn’t keep his hands—and other parts—off me. After all, I did have a law degree, and I hadn’t
slept my way through that degree either. Anyone in the pack could tell you that a shifter needed to be
twice as good as a human to get the same recognition. Bullshit clauses like that were the bread and
butter of contract law, which happened to be my specialty. “What new weirdness are you going to
make me eat this time?”
“That’s for me to know, and for you to await with bated breath.”
I could hear the smile in his voice, which made me want to tease a little. “Just so you know, I
brought a bucket with me this time. In case I need to throw up.”
“Garrick, Garrick, Garrick. And you call me a heathen.”
“Raw scallops?” Ewww. I didn’t like seafood anyway—it was expensive unless it was frozen,
and Mercy Hills was landlocked. In more ways than one, come to think of it. “So, you’ll be
home soon?”
“Twenty minutes? Depending on traffic.”
The grocery store wasn’t that far away. “What are you up to?”
“Nothing. But I didn’t want to waste time making supper, so I ordered take-out.”
Oh, that wasn’t too ominous. “All right, I’ll see you then.” We got off the phone, and I went
upstairs to use the giant walk-in shower in Laine’s en-suite and get ready for the evening.
 CHA P TER 3

L aine stopped by the take-out place and picked up two orders of eggplant parmigiana, something
fairly ordinary that he would put better than even odds on Garrick eating. It had surprised him at
first how narrow Garrick’s tastes were, until he’d realized that the pack tended to eat the same things
over and over again because they bought in bulk to keep the cost low, and parceled it out to everyone
inside the enclave. It also explained Garrick’s ferocious sweet tooth, because nearly everything was
handmade inside those walls, and Garrick had been a bachelor all his life. Which meant no cookies
except on Full Moon. Unless he wanted to make them himself.
And Garrick was not a cook.
He was a little worried about Garrick saying he was staying over tonight, but Garrick had assured
him it would be fine. Laine accepted that because Garrick was an adult and Laine thought that Mercy
Hills valued his contribution to the pack, but he was under no illusion that Laine himself was in
anyone’s good graces in the enclave, barring Garrick and Jason and maybe Mac. Possibly Holland,
though Laine’s opinion went back and forth on that.
Holland was a bit of a puzzle, that was for sure. The Alpha’s Mate carried himself with a lot
more confidence and authority than his twenty-one years rightfully should have given him. And for the
first time since he was a teenager, Laine found himself making the proverbial ‘bad choices’, or at
least things that later turned out to belong in that category. Hormone-fueled desires to make life better
for Garrick and his people.
Like talking Garrick into bringing Tom and Nigel to Green Moon, though that seemed to have
turned out for the better for the pack. But, somehow, Laine had stepped over a line he hadn’t ever
realized existed the first night he’d slept with Garrick, and not only could he not quite figure out how
that changed expectations, there seemed to be nothing he could do to step back over it.
Not that he wanted to.
If he were to be truthful, he thought Holland was struggling a little with the weight of all the
responsibilities he was taking on—working, children, the pack. And a mate who was even busier than
he was. And Laine and Garrick were a complication of a new and different sort that might be tipping
the balance on Holland’s carefully orchestrated life. It was a thought that made Laine wonder if that
overload was the real base of Holland’s uncertainty about their growing relationship.
He frowned as he turned onto his street. Would it be worthwhile to have a sit down with Holland
to talk this all out? So far, it had been just short conversations, constantly interrupted as Holland was
pulled away for something else, and even those tiny interactions made Garrick uneasy, which made no
sense to Laine. You should be able to talk to the leaders of your community about your concerns, your
wants, your dreams. It wasn’t much of a community if you couldn’t.
 Maybe he’d just tell Garrick afterward.
He pulled into his driveway and put the car in park. It was a nice enough neighborhood, he
supposed. Garrick seemed impressed, though Laine wasn’t much for the cookie-cutter HOA feel of it.
He hadn’t cared much about where he lived after the divorce—his ex had gotten the house so their
little girl could stay in the same school system and be near all her friends. He didn’t see April much,
though he tried. Joint custody, but April stayed at her mother’s house most of the time and he got every
second weekend and random evenings through the week.
It was getting harder to balance that life with his new one, especially with Garrick in it, because
as amicable as their divorce had been, he didn’t know what Brenna would think of Garrick staying
over while April was in the house. Garrick knew about her—couldn’t miss it, really, with her
bedroom at the top of the stairs—but he’d never mentioned it, and Laine hadn’t either. She was at her
mom’s tonight though, and Laine had the whole evening to spend with Garrick.
It took two trips to bring everything into the house. He carried the take-out in first as an excuse to
steal a lingering kiss from Garrick, then ran out to the car to bring the rest of the food in. “I couldn’t
decide between the cookies and the pastries, so I got both,” he said as he came through the door the
second time.
Garrick closed it behind him and locked it, then followed Laine to the kitchen. “Good, I’m
starving. What else did you bring home to eat?”
“Steak and salad for tomorrow, chicken for the day after. Tonight’s eggplant parmigiana.”
Garrick raised his eyebrows at that. “Eggplant?”
“We have a deal. This is the thing.” He was going to expand Garrick’s palate if it killed him.
Which it just might.
“Fine. But if I end up eating all the cookies, it’s your fault.” Suiting actions to words, Garrick
slipped a cookie out of the plastic container and jammed half of it in his mouth while he emptied the
rest of the grocery bags onto the table and started to organize them by cupboard. Laine shook his head
and paused to watch Garrick’s assured movements as he tucked things away exactly where they
belonged. It struck him that he’d known Garrick for three years now, and he moved to help with the
last of the groceries in a kind of startled daze. Where had the time gone?
Now he sounded like an old man.
Garrick came back to the table to poke at the cardboard covered tins that were all that was left of
Laine’s quick trip into town. “So, this is eggplant parmigiana?” He looked less than enthusiastic.
“It’s like spaghetti, only with more cheese, and more other stuff.” He frowned at Garrick’s
dubious expression. “Garrick, are you planning to break the contract?”
“Absolutely not.” Garrick held his hands up palm out to ward off the notion, then went to get
plates.
Laine didn’t think so—not with the consequences he’d negotiated into it. He got forks and wine
glasses, and picked out a nice red that he’d had good luck with when entertaining non-wine drinkers.
They didn’t drink much in the enclave either, generally only on the big full moons in spring and fall,
though Garrick said it was getting more common now that they were producing their own beer for
sale. Laine was trying to teach Garrick about wine, which was going much slower than he’d
anticipated.
They ate and Laine had been right about the parmigiana, though he’d had to squint hard at Garrick
to get him to eat the first forkful. Then they’d cleaned up, which was pretty easy with a dishwasher
and no pots to wash.
“You want to go over the arguments for tomorrow?” Garrick asked as he dried his hands and hung
the dishtowel back inside the cupboard.
“No, I think I’m good. It’s pretty straightforward and we’ve got everything we need.” The last day
of testimony for a domestic abuse case that Laine had been given by one of the managing partners.
The guy was guilty, so guilty. Still, everyone had the right to a defense, even entitled and violent
assholes. Laine would do his job, but he had never in his life ever been so glad to know that the
police had done theirs, and done it well too.
But that was for tomorrow. Tonight, he had Garrick.
Laine walked forward and put his hands on Garrick’s hips in open invitation. “I wouldn’t mind
going over your arguments, though.”
“Cheesy,” Garrick said mildly.
“Did it work?”
“Pretty low bar, to be honest.” Garrick stepped into his embrace, hands gently cupping the curve
of Laine’s skull. “Missed this.” And he pressed his mouth to Laine’s and made Laine’s heart soar.
Another random document with
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be rolled up while the topping-lifts would hold the entire weight. The
two braces, leading down not quite from the extremities of the yard,
a single sheet made fast a little forward of the middle of the boom, a
forestay and also a single backstay were also used, but side rigging
never.
From about the year 1250 b.c. onwards, the sail was no longer
furled by slacking away the halyards, but, having dispensed with the
boom, brails of about four in number usually hung from the yard
which was now not lowered but a fixture. Consequently on coming to
an anchorage the brails would be used for furling the sail to the yard
—still standing owing to the weight and consequent exertion needed
to hoist it again. This, then, remained the accepted rig of the
Phœnicians, Greeks and Romans for over a thousand years as we
shall see from the evidence of coins and vases.
The importance of the various expeditions of the Egyptians to Punt
cannot be over-estimated. They are the earliest attempt at
organising a fleet of powerful ships to voyage far away from home
waters. Exactly where Punt was situated it is not possible to say,
because the name was given to various regions at different times.
Sometimes it is the modern Somaliland, or the shore opposite: at
other times it is somewhere in a more southerly direction. But
wherever Punt may have been, it was either to the East or South of
Egypt. The real motive of these expeditions was to increase the
commerce of Egypt, to open up trade with the neighbouring
countries, and especially to obtain incense for the burials of the
Egyptians. Such commodities as ivory, leopard skins, ostrich
feathers and gold were also brought back.
I am indebted for much information with reference to these
expeditions to a most interesting publication of the Egypt Exploration
Fund,[6] and to the work of a German scholar.[7] In the illustrations of
the Punt expedition as depicted in Hatshopsitu’s Temple, we see five
ships arriving. Two have struck sail and are moored. The first ship
has sent out a small boat which is fastened by ropes to a tree on the
shore, while bags and amphora, probably containing food and drink,
are being unloaded to present to the chief of Punt. The other three
ships are coming up with sail set, showing us the most interesting
details as to their rigging. On one of them the pilot is seen giving the
command “To the port side.” There is an inscription annexed to this
illustration, which, as stated above, can now be deciphered. It reads
thus:—“These are the ships, which the wind brought along with it.”
And again, “The voyage on the sea, the attainment of the longed-for
aim in the holy land, the happy arrival of the Egyptian soldiers in the
land of Punt, according to the arrangement of the divine Prince
Amon, Lord of the terrestrial thrones in Thebes, in order to bring to
him the treasures of the whole land in such quantities as will satisfy
him.”
We see, too, the ships being loaded with the produce of Punt. The
Egyptians are bringing the cargo across a gangway from the shore
to the ship. There are bags of incense and gold, ebony, tusks of
elephants, skins of panthers, frankincense trees piled up in
confusion on the ships’ decks. Monkeys, too, have been obtained,
which have been truthfully depicted as amusing themselves by
walking along the truss. Any one who has ever taken a monkey on
board a sailing ship knows that the first thing he does is to run up the
rigging. It is a small point this, but it shows that the artist was anxious
to be truthful and exact in his details.
The hieroglyphic inscription accompanying this illustration is
virtually the bill of lading. It gives a detailed and accurate account of
all the articles destined for transport. The translation of this
according to Dr. Duemichen is: “The loading of the ships of transport
with a great quantity of the magnificent products of Arabia, with all
kinds of precious woods of the holy land, with heaps of incense-
resin, with verdant incense trees, with ebony, with pure ivory, with
gold and silver from the land of Amu, with the (odorous) Tepes wood
and the Kassiarind, with Aham-incense and Mestemrouge, with
Anau-monkeys, Kop-monkeys, and Tesem-animals, with skins of
leopards of the South, with women and children. Never has a
transport (been made) like this one by any king since the creation of
the world.”
 Fig. 7. Egyptian Ship (in the Temple of Deir-el-Bahari).

Finally (see Fig. 7) we are shown three vessels of the fleet

returning to Thebes richly laden. The accompanying inscription in
this case reads: “The excursion was completed satisfactorily; happy
arrival at Thebes to the joy of the Egyptian soldiers. The (Arabian
and Ethiopian) princes, after they had arrived in this country, bring
with them costly things of the land of Arabia, such as had never yet
been brought that could be compared with what they brought, by any
of the Egyptian kings, for the supreme majesty of this god Amon-Ra,
Lord of the terrestrial thrones.”
“If the expedition really landed at Thebes,” says Dr. Edouard
Naville, “we must suppose that at that time, long before Ramases II.,
who is said to have made a canal from the Nile to the Red Sea, there
was an arm of the Nile forming a communication with the sea, which
extended much farther north than it does now.”[8]
When we remember the splendour and gaiety of the court at
Thebes, the many gorgeous festivals that were held on the water,
the Egyptians’ love of pleasure and their intense joy in living, we are
neither surprised to learn of the great fêtes that celebrated the safe
return of these voyagers, nor of the fact that a company of royal
dancers accompanied the ships to enliven the navigation with song
and dance. That the Egyptians dearly loved their ships and set them
in high honour cannot be disputed. Besides burying them in the
tombs of their rulers, there were times when sacred boats were
carried out of the temples on the occasion of high festivals and
dragged along by sledges.
Professor Maspero[9] believes that the navigation of the Red Sea
by the Egyptians was far more frequent than is usually imagined,
and the same kinds of vessels in which they coasted along the
Mediterranean from the mouth of the Nile to the southern coast of
Syria, conveyed them also, by following the coast of Africa, as far as
the straits of Bab-el-Mandeb. These ships were, of course,
somewhat bigger and more able than the Nile boats, though they
were built on the same model. They were clinker-built with narrow
sharp stem and stern, with enormous sheer rising from forward to
the high stern. They were not open boats but decked, and we find
hieroglyphics denoting the pilot’s orders “Pull the oar,” “To the port
side.” Heavier, bigger, with more freeboard and no hold, the Egyptian
merchant ships, crowded with their cargo and a complement of fifty
sailors, pilots, and passengers, barely afforded room for working the
ship properly. The length of ships of the size that went to Punt has
been thought to be about sixty-five feet, or much smaller than such
modern yachts as “Shamrock” and “Nyria.”
We have already mentioned the wonderful influence the rig of the
Egyptians exercised to the eastward, but though the old squaresail
rig has gone from Egypt, yet to-day we can still see very similar
boats and almost the same rig on the Orange Laut of the Malay
West Coast. The overhanging bow and stern, the great sheer from
forward to the high poop, the large single squaresail, now converted
practically into a lug-sail, are still there to keep alive the memory of
the ships of the Dynasties.
I have already referred in the previous chapter to the lateen sail
having been adapted from the Egyptian rig a few centuries before
the Christian era. But it is probable that between the squaresail rig
and the lateen there was just one intermediate stage. By tilting the
yard at a different angle to the mast, instead of it being at right
angles, so that the foot came down lower, and the peak of the sail
was pointed higher, it would be found that the ship would hold a
better wind. This is amply borne out by the Egyptian “Nugger” (see
Fig. 8), which is still in use on the Nile above the second cataract,
and is being replaced only very slowly by the lateen. There is a relief
on a sarcophagus found in the precincts of the Vatican, and now in
the Lateran Museum, which certainly resembles the “Nugger” in its
transition from the squaresail to the lateen. (The date of this is about
200 a.d.). The only important difference is that the Vatican relief
shows a topsail added. Finally, discarding the boom altogether, the
lateen sail comes with the foot of the sail lower still, and
consequently the peak much higher, being but an exaggerated form
of our modern lug-sail so prevalent in sailing dinghies. This remains,
as we have pointed out above, as the characteristic sail of the
Mediterranean, the Nile and Red Sea.

Fig. 8. An Egyptian Nugger.

Before we close this chapter one must refer to the vexed question
as to when the ancients discovered that wonderful art of sailing
against the wind—tacking. In the absence of any definite knowledge,
I hold the opinion that this first came into practice on the Nile about
the time the nugger, or dhow was introduced as the rig for sailing
boats. My reasons for this supposition are: firstly, the squaresail
being more suitable for the open sea and making passages of some
length, it would be a country having a navigable river that would be
likely to discover such a rig as would enable them to sail with the
stream against the prevailing northerly wind; secondly, arguing on
the theory (which has many adherents) that the dhow came in about
the time of the death of Alexander the Great who revolutionised at
least one corner of Egypt, leaving behind his name to the port of
Alexandria as an eternal memorial, I hold that the invention of this
dhow rig made the ship to come very close to the wind—far closer
than the old-fashioned squaresail of the earlier Egyptians. Realising,
when coming down with the stream, that they could go so near to the
wind when approaching the right bank, why—surely it must have
occurred to such highly developed minds—could they not do the
same when zigzagging across to the left shore? At first, no doubt,
they pulled her head round with their oars, until, perhaps, on one
occasion, she carried so much way from the last shore that she
came round of her own accord—shook herself for a moment, as she
hung for a short time in stays—and then paid off on the other tack.
After that, the whole art of going to windward was revealed. My third
reason is based on the fact that the Saxons, who settled around the
mouth of the Elbe and subjugated the Thuringians after the death of
Alexander the Great, did possess this knowledge of tacking.
Unless it were with the intention of tacking, it is difficult to see why
the dhow, or nugger rig should have prevailed. But we do know that
this form of sail was extant about the time of Alexander; therefore,
tacking must be at least as old as the death of Alexander in the
fourth century b.c. A squaresail-ship whether ancient or modern will
go no nearer the wind than seven points, whereas the fore-and-after
will sail as close as five. This, as soon as the fact was fully realised
on the Nile, would hasten that day when tacking was first found out.
Egypt, after flourishing so mightily for so many hundreds of years,
had its decline not less than its rise. Just as the earlier Egyptian
sculptures are superior to the later ones in sincerity and fidelity,
becoming subsequently more stiff and formal, so her shipping
eventually deteriorated, and the mastery of the seas passed into the
hands of the Phœnicians.
 CHAPTER III.
ANCIENT SHIPS OF PHŒNICIA, GREECE, AND

ROME.[10]

t is almost impossible to exaggerate the potent

influence exercised by the Phœnicians, as
successors of the Egyptians, in being the maritime
nation of the world. Happy in their origin by the
Persian Gulf, fortunate, too, in having had the
Egyptians before them, and so benefiting by the
knowledge and experience of the latter, they had
developed and prospered through the centuries
parallel with the Dynastic peoples. Much that we should wish to
know about the Phœnicians is wanting, but we have more than
adequate material for the means of realising something of the range
and intensity of their sway.
Migrating, like the first Egyptians, westward, they had settled
around the Levant, to the north of Palestine. Already, in prehistoric
days, they had expanded still further westward into Greece, founding
Thebes in Bœotia, and teaching the barbarian inhabitants of that
country the elements of civilisation. Everywhere in the ancient world,
from remote ages until a century or two before the Incarnation,
Phœnician ships were as numerous in the waters of the
Mediterranean, as British vessels in all parts of the world are to-day.
Possessing a genius for trade, a keen love for the sea and for travel,
they had the complete mastery of the commerce and fisheries of the
Ægean Sea, until as late as the eighth century b.c. They dragged up
from the waters its shell fish to make purple dies; they burrowed into
the earth to extract silver; they opened up commerce wherever it
was possible, exchanging such products of the East as woven
fabrics and highly-wrought metal work. They built factories on islands
and promontories, and gave to the towns along the coast-line—
especially of the eastern side of Greece—Phœnician names.
Troubling but little about inland situations, they made their strong
settlements to be their island homes.
Although eventually the Phœnicians were driven out of the
Ægean, yet their effect on the inhabitants of Greece was a lasting
one. As Greece had received from the Phœnicians her first culture,
so she had adopted their religion and their species of ships. We shall
see, presently, how very similar the ships of the Greeks and
Phœnicians were. But before proceeding thus far, let us remember
that, though the Phœnicians were developing while the Egyptians
were declining, yet, indubitably, they owed a vast amount to the
civilisation of the latter. Why the Phœnicians, more than any other
people, were influenced by the Egyptians is not hard to understand if
we realise that they alone were allowed to trade to the mouths of the
Nile. The Egyptians guarded their kingdom inviolate against all other
merchants of the Mediterranean, although Achaian pirates from the
North at times swept down to the Nile Delta. Not until the Twenty-
Sixth Dynasty, when Egypt was reunited, and again made a strong
kingdom, were the Milesian and other Greek traders allowed to begin
commercial operations with the land of the Pharaohs.
Broadly speaking, the Phœnician ships were identical with those
of about the time of Ramases III. (1200 b.c.). The fixed yard, the
absence of boom, the brails suspending from the yard, the sweep of
the lines aft to the overhanging stern, the double steering oar—these
characteristics, which in the last chapter we left with the Egyptians,
are all seen in the ships of the Phœnicians. The chief noticeable
difference is that the latter have altered the bow so that she has a
ram. It was the Phœnicians, too, who invented the bireme and
trireme in order that speed might be obtained through increasing the
height without adding to the length of the ship. The ships become
somewhat larger than those of the Egyptians, for the reason that
they have to voyage much further afield. Consequently the sail is
sometimes found bigger, too, and instead of four brails, six is the
usual number seen. The Phœnician bireme had as many as eleven
or twelve rowers each side, sails being only used in a fair wind, but
never at all in battle. In addition to its crew of seamen, a Phœnician
trireme often carried thirty marines, sometimes of a nation different
from the Phœnicians.
Right to the end, even when decline had at last taken the place of
a rise, the Phœnicians remained good sailormen. Whenever a
superior foe overcame them, they were used by their new master
with deadly effect against his next enemy. We have an instance of
this in the fifth century b.c., when, Phœnicia and Cyprus having
been defeated by Cambyses, the latter utilised the strong Phœnician
fleet against Amasis, the Egyptian king. And again, in the following
century, when Xerxes had enforced the most rigorous conscription,
and every maritime people in his dominions had been compelled to
put forth its full strength, we find it recorded that the most trustworthy
portion of the fleet, far superior to the Egyptians, was composed of
ships of the Phœnician cities, the kings of Tyre and Sidon appearing
in person, each at the head of his own contingent. Other things being
equal, that side was usually victorious which had the Phœnicians
with them. For the Phœnicians had the instinct of sailormen; they
knew how to build and design their ships to withstand a fight; they
had the ships, they had the men, and, what was more important still,
they knew how to use both.
But the Phœnicians were more than mere traders or fighters: they
were the world’s greatest explorers—until the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries of our era. It was they who voyaged out of the
Mediterranean across the turbulent Bay of Biscay to Cornwall and
perhaps Ireland. I am of the firm opinion that they also continued
their travels further eastward across the North Sea: we will deal with
that, however, in the next chapter. At any rate about the beginning of
the sixth century b.c. they circumnavigated Africa, obeying the
orders of Neco, an Egyptian king, “who”—to continue in Hakluyt’s
Elizabethan English—“(for trial’s sake) sent a fleet of Phœnicians
downe the Red sea: who setting forth in the Autumne and sailing
Southward till they had the Sunne at noone-tide upon their sterbourd
(that is to say, having crossed the Æquinoctial and the Southerne
tropique) after a long Navigation, directed their course to the North,
and in the space of 3. yeeres environed all Africk, passing home
through the Gaditan streites, and arriving in Egypt.”[11]
It was the Phœnicians, too, who with the Israelites in the time of
Solomon sailed down the Red Sea to Eastern Africa, Persia, and
Beluchistan. Some, indeed, have thought that the Phœnicians sailed
out of the Mediterranean and keeping their course to the westward
were the first to discover America. Whether this is true or not is a
matter for dispute, but it is quite possible. I have seen a little seven-
ton cutter yacht that came across on her own bottom, and she is not
half the size of the old Phœnician ships. Nor had she a few dozen
galley slaves on board to pull at the oars: still less the room wherein
to stow them.[12] There is, then, nothing at all improbable in the
Phœnicians having gone so far afield. They were not pressed for
time, and could afford to wait till the weather suited them. Given a
fair wind they could not have had better shaped canvas for the
voyage than theirs. Every sailor will tell you that there is nothing to
beat the squaresail for ocean passages, and those who have tried
the fore-and-aft rig for deep-sea sailing have lived to wish they had
had a rectangular sail set across the mast, so as to avoid the fear of
gybing as in a fore-and-after. Lord Brassey, when, in the famous
race across the Atlantic in 1905, he commanded his own yacht the
Sunbeam, afterwards endorsed these opinions about the respective
merits of the square-sail and of the fore-and-aft rig.
Moreover, the Phœnicians had ample brails for reefing. True, the
ship would roll considerably with so shallow a keel, but her length
would be of some assistance, and no doubt the skipper would see to
it that the crew steadied her with their oars.
Either from the Egyptians or the Phœnicians—but almost certainly
from the latter—the people down the east coast of Africa learnt the
art of navigation pretty thoroughly, for we know from Hakluyt that
when, at the end of the fifteenth century of our era, Vasco da Gama
doubled the Cape of Good Hope and called at the East African ports,
he found that the arts of navigation were as well understood by the
Eastern seamen as by himself. This would seem to imply that these
Africans had years ago reached the state of advancement in sailing
a ship already possessed by the more civilised parts of the world.
Our evidence as to the actual shape and rig of the Phœnician craft
is of two kinds. Firstly, thanks to the discoveries of the late Sir Austin
Layard and his successors, we have one or two representations of
ships. One of these is a rowing boat pure and simple, very tubby,
and obviously never intended to be used with a sail. Secondly, we
have the evidence of coins of the towns of Phœnicia. I have been so
fortunate as to be able to reproduce two of the latter, both being of
Sidon.
With regard to the first class, these date back to a period of about
700 b.c. On a relief belonging to the Palace of Sennacherib found
near Nineveh, and now in the British Museum, and also on a relief of
the Palace of Khorsabad, built by King Sargon, there are depicted
ancient Phœnician ships. This latter is now in the Louvre. But these
reliefs do not tell us very much, though they are of assistance if read
in conjunction with the coins. The upper deck of the ship from the
Sennacherib Palace was reserved for the combatants while fighting,
and for persons of quality when making a passage. We see the latter
reclining in the sunshine, and the look-out man in the bows. A mast
with forestay, braces and sail furled to the yard, would be also on the
top deck, but these would be of no considerable size. A row of
shields ran round as a protection against the enemy’s darts, and the
stem ended in a powerful ram. At least seventeen oarsmen in two
banks on each side worked the ship, while a couple of steering oars,
after the manner of the Egyptians, kept her on her course. This was
a bireme for war purposes.
But the ship depicted in the Palace of Khorsabad, while not
showing any sail, indicates very clearly a mast with stays leading
fore and aft to the bow (which ends in a horse’s head) and to the
stern. The shape of this craft, if it was anything like the Phœnician
ships, which came to Northern Europe, would certainly seem to
prove that the Phœnicians continued their voyage further east to
Norway; for here, with the high tapering stern and bow, and the
decoration of the latter, is what could very easily be taken for the
early design of the Viking ships. She is entirely different from the
 Egyptian type of ship, though she has
evidently been based on the latter.
Passing now to the two coins of Sidon,
these are both probably of about the
year 450 b.c. Fig. 9 is from a coin in the
British Museum. It is a little indistinct, but
the Egyptian stern is still seen, though
the ram, as already referred to, is at the
bows. The double steering oars are
faintly visible, though the long line of
Fig. 9. Phœnician Ship. shields, which survived well into the
From a coin of Sidon, c. 450 b.c. middle ages, is clearly defined. The
curve of the keel-line is very beautiful,
and she must have been very fast, as indeed we know from
historians similar shaped vessels in Greece were. Although such a
ship was of great length, yet by reason of the curve of the keel,
having the greatest depth amidships, and because of the design of
the stern, she would probably steer pretty easily. This, of course,
was essential in the naval manœuvres that were undertaken in
fights. As to the sails, if the reader has already followed us in the
previous chapter, these call for but little explanation again. The yard
is ordinarily kept fixed. The sails hang apparently in two sections like
so many curtains, being divided at the mast. The same peculiarity is
to be seen in the Irrawadi junks referred to previously.
For shortening sail in a blow, or for stowing when coming to
anchor, the six brails seen depending from the yard would be wound
round the sail, once or twice, by sending a couple of men to the top
of the yard, the crew below throwing up the rope to be passed round
sail and yard. It was a clumsy method, but it sufficed. The reader
may remember that the Dutchmen have used this principle since the
sixteenth century, and the Thames barge of to-day still follows the
general idea. The only real difference is that in the Dutchman and
Thames barge, being fore-and-aft rigged, the brail comes
horizontally—at right angles to the mast—instead of vertically, and
parallel to the mast, whilst, of course, going aloft is unnecessary.
Even this Dutch brailing system was derived from that used by the
lateen-sails of the Mediterranean. (See the mizzen of the Santa
Maria, in Fig. 45.) In detail, too, there is a slight difference, for the
modern ships we are mentioning have a ring, or fair-lead, for the
brail to come through, one end being fastened to the sail, the
standing part passing through the ring on the leach of the sail and so
back to the mast.
What we have said regarding this illustration is applicable also to
Fig. 10. But happily this shows us some important details in the
stern. First, the staff with crescent-top denotes that she was the
admiral’s flagship. The curved-line immediately below represents
part of the structure called the aphlaston (ἀ + Φλαζω = I crush). This
was placed as a protection for the ship against the terrible damage
that might be done by the enemy charging into her and ramming her.
A still better example of this detail will be noticed in Fig. 14. One can
easily trace this as having come from the Egyptian ships of the
eighteenth dynasty that went to Punt. Immediately below this, in Fig.
10 again, and hanging down, may be either a protection against the
enemy or, as will be seen in the ship of Odysseus (Fig. 16), a kind of
decoration resembling some rich carpet, to ornament the stern
where the admiral was located in authority. This second Phœnician
illustration is from a coin in the Hunterian Collection, Glasgow.
It has been said that some of the
larger Phœnician ships were as long as
300 feet, though this statement needs to
be taken with caution. At any rate, it is
accurate to describe them as being long,
straight, narrow, and flat-bottomed, and
as carrying sometimes as many as fifty
oarsmen. Although the crescent-shape
had for so long a time been almost a
convention for the design of the ship, yet
the nation that could found so important Fig. 10. Phœnician Ship.
and prosperous a colony as Carthage, From a coin of Sidon, c. 450 b.c.
and that built ships both for Egyptians
and Persians, would not be likely to be
held down too tightly by custom where their own clever genius and
invaluable practical experience taught them otherwise. By
completely modifying the bow as it had been customary in the
Egyptian ships, the Phœnicians started a new fashion in naval
architecture which, permeating through Greek and Roman history, is
still found in the galleys of the Adriatic as late as the eighteenth
century of our era. Those bows, with or without the ram, even on a
Maltese sailing galley, show their ancient Phœnician ancestry in an
undeniable manner.
Our information regarding ancient Greek and Roman ships is
derived from the following sources: the writings of Homer,
Herodotus, Thucydides, Cicero, Cæsar, Tacitus, Xenophon, Lucian,
Pliny, Livy, Æschylus, Aristophanes, Euripides, Plutarch, Sophocles,
and others; the inventories of the Athenian arsenals of the fourth
century b.c.; ancient Greek vases; reliefs discovered in Southern
Europe at various periods; monuments and tombs; mosaics found in
North Africa, ancient coins; the Voyages of St. Paul; and finally
ancient remains such as fibulæ, terra-cotta models, and earthenware
lamps.
From these diverse channels of information we find that the
Phœnicians who invented the bireme and the trireme, who had
adopted the Egyptian stern and rigging for their ships, handed these
features on to the Greeks, and they, in turn, to the Romans. The
earliest Greek ships were afloat in the thirteenth century b.c., and by
about the year 800 b.c. maritime matters had taken the greatest hold
on the dwellers in the Greek peninsula and the western coasts of
Asia Minor. The fierce race for wealth which to-day we see going on
in America had its precedent in the eighth century before the
Christian era in the north-eastern corner of the Mediterranean. Very
quickly the contestants found that the shortest route to affluence was
viâ the sea. Indeed, following the example of their first teachers, the
Phœnicians, so zealously did they keep to their ships that the
Milesian sea-traders formed a party in the State known as “the men
never off the water.” In the seventh century, if not earlier, the Greeks
were prosperously fishing in the Black Sea; and though the dangers
of rounding Mount Athos in the Ægean were in those days to some
extent analogous to the perils which a sailing ship to-day suffers in
doubling Cape Horn, yet in the fourth century b.c., Xerxes, rather
than risk a series of shipwrecks to his fleet in the stormy seas at the
foot of this mountain, had the sandy isthmus connecting the
mainland pierced with a canal.
Greece lacked the advantage to be found in a Tigris, a Euphrates,
or Nile. Her rivers are so short, and their descent to the sea so rapid,
that navigation was utterly impossible. But for what she missed in
rivers she was amply compensated in respect of the peculiar
formation of the coast. Endowed with the same blessing that makes
the west coast of Scotland so attractive (but happily without the
drawback of the Atlantic immediately outside the lochs), Greece had
her delightful inlets and arms of the seas running far up into the land.
The peaceful waters of the Grecian archipelago, the mildness of its
climate, the absence of tides, the comparative smoothness of the
water—except for occasional squalls with a nasty short sea—these
were factors every bit as encouraging for the art of navigation as
ever the conditions that smiled on the Egyptians. In some respects
they were more stimulating in proportion as the sea makes a better
sailor than even the biggest river. Add to this that there was at hand
an ample supply of good wood and that the southern shores of the
Euxine were rich not merely in timber but in iron, copper and red-
lead. Could the shipbuilder’s paradise possibly be more complete?
There was just one drawback from which, as it seems to me, the
nations on the Mediterranean compared with the inhabitants of
Northern Europe have always suffered: even till to-day, or at any rate
up to the introduction of steam, the tendency of the Mediterraneans
has been to build sailing boats rather than sailing ships. The very
conditions that prompted naval architecture at all limited their scope.
I mean, of course, that whereas along the coasts washed by the
Baltic, the North Sea and the English Channel, the sea-farers had
either to build a ship or nothing, the case in the Mediterranean was
different. The treacherous waters of the North Sea or Baltic, the
existence of dangerous sand banks and rushing tides, were an unfair
match for delicately designed craft accustomed to sun-speckled
seas. Although the Viking craft had their full complement of rowers,
yet they were far abler ships than the over-oared boats of Greece
and those of the early days of Rome. Right down to the time of the
Spanish Armada, and after, the tendency was ever for the galley or
galleass—the rowed ship rather than the sailing ship—to linger as
long as possible, whereas in the North the reverse has been the
case. I attribute the prevalence of the “galley” type of craft to two
causes—the geographical conditions of Southern Europe and the
abundance of slaves. When any amount of physical rowing power
could be got with such ease and absence of expense, it was not
likely that the sailing ship, per se, would advance. I think there can
be no doubt at all that this condition of affairs kept back both the rig
and design of shipping for very many years. The Southerner’s first
aim was to create a craft that would be fast; the Northerner’s object
was to have a ship that would be seaworthy. The difference between
being able to ride out a gale and that of being able to manœuvre with
all possible despatch in comparatively sheltered waters, will be found
to be the basis of the characteristic features that separate the craft of
Northern and Southern Europe.
In Fig. 11 we have some indication of
a Greek sailing ship or boat of about the
eighth century, when, as we have just
said, there existed the great passion for
the sea as a means to wealth. This
illustration has been sketched from a
Bœotian fibula, made of bronze, and
now in the British Museum. The boat has
not the appearance of being particularly
seaworthy, although it is perfectly clear
Fig 11. Greek Ship. that she is a sailing craft. The aphlaston
From Bœotian fibula of the already alluded to will be noticed at the
eighth century b.c. stern. The bow shows the Phœnician
influence with its ram-like features, and
this characteristic continued to exist with similar prominence till at
any rate the beginning of the Christian era. Opinions differ as to
whether the teeth-like projections at bow and stern are just the
extending horizontal timbers. Personally, I believe they are separate
fixtures with bronze or iron tips, those at the bow for preventing the
ram going too far into the enemy’s ship; those at the stern affording a
protection against being rammed by the enemy. The forestay leads
down to what is apparently a primitive forecastle, and the man in the
stern is standing on a platform, but so crude is the draughtsmanship
that it would be unsafe to affirm that this was raised as high as the
forecastle. Some have thought that this stern arrangement may
denote a latticed cabin, but this seems doubtful. However, it is quite
clear that the skipper is either steering or rowing with his foot as the
primitive gondolier, while his mate is busy as the look-out. The
design at the top of the mast has been thought to be a lantern, but it
might also be a flag.

Fig. 12. Greek War Galley.

From a vase, c. 500 b.c.

Although not shown in this example, many of the early Greek

ships had two forestays and a backstay. The mast was supported at
its foot by a prop, and when lowered it lay aft in a rest, being raised
and lowered by means of the forestays, like the custom of the
Thames barge and the Norfolk wherry-man. Fig. 12 represents a
war-galley taken from a Greek vase of about 500 b.c. It will be found
in the Second Vase Room of the British Museum. The sail (ἱστίον)
will be seen hanging from the yard, together with the brails as
already described. The two halyards come down on either side of the
mast. We should presume that, having the brails, the Greek ships
were accustomed to reefing: but we have actual evidence from the
expression used by Aristophanes “ἄκροισι χρῆσθαι ἱστίος,” “to keep
the sails close-reefed.” Similarly Euripides has the phrase “ἄκροισι
λαίφουσ κραπέδοις,” “under close-reefed sails” (lit. “with the
outermost edges of the sail”). The reefing method is better shown in
Fig. 13. If it came on to blow two hands would be sent aloft to go out
along the yard. The brails one by one would be thrown up to the
men, who would pass each brail once or thrice round the yard,
according to the number of reefs required to be taken in. Fig. 13
shows a ship close-reefed. That this is no fanciful picture will be
seen by the reader who cares to compare the relief on the tomb of
Naevoleja Tyche at Pompei,[13] on which will be noticed one man on
deck getting ready the brails to throw them up, while two other
members of the crew are already out on the yard, and two more still
are climbing up the rigging to help them, probably by taking up the
ends of the brails.
Each yard was composed of two spars lashed together as in the
Maltese galley and Japanese junk of to-day. The Latin word for a
yard was always used in the plural—antennæ—to signify the two
parts lashed in one. The boar’s head—a very favourite symbol for
this purpose in early ships—will be noticed at the bow of the war-
galley in Fig. 12. Above it is the forecastle, and running thence
astern is a flying deck, in order that the fighting men might not hinder
the work of the rowers. The two banks of oars will be immediately
noticed. Astern sits the steersman with his two steering-oars. That
which hangs from the stern below is the gangway for going aboard.
The crew either hauled their ships ashore at night, or, laying out
anchors from the bows seaward, carried stern ropes ashore to a
rock. The gangway shown was lowered to the land side, and the
crew came aboard from aft. The reader who is familiar with the
Yorkshire cobble and the method adopted for beaching by the
fishermen on the coast above the Humber will find additional interest
in this.
 The ship in Fig. 13 is a merchantman. The gangways are very
noticeable. So also is the Egyptian stern with the steering oars.
Amidships will be seen the wattled screens or washboards, acting as
bulwarks for keeping out the spray. A similar arrangement was
customary on the Viking ships, and remains to this day on
Norwegian ships of that kind. At the stern of both this ship and that of
the previous figure will be noticed an ornament resembling some
plant. Perhaps to us moderns the most striking feature of the ship is
her beautiful bow: indeed, had one not seen the actual vase, one
might easily have said that the design was taken from a modern
schooner bow. There are so many points about this merchant ship
that attract us in looking at her that we wonder, not unnaturally, if we
have advanced so much after all during these fourteen hundred
years since she was designed, for such a bow and such a stern
would win applause in any port.

Fig. 13. Greek Merchantman.

From a vase, c. 500 b.c.

The war-galleys were called longships, and the merchant vessels

roundships. This aptly describes the chief difference which
separated them. Whilst the former were essentially rowing-ships,
depending on oars only as auxiliaries, the merchant ship was