How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves | Page 7

a select few, and concealed from the public by
having an air of religious mystery thrown over it. Lumps of loadstone
formed into balls were preserved in their temples, and looked upon

with awe, as possessing mystic properties. With these round stones the
point of a needle was rubbed, as often as it required fresh magnetising.
I have already described the compass used by the Phoenicians, and
how, long after Islamism had gained the ascendency, it was possessed
by their descendants. At length the secret was divulged, and it came
into general use among the mariners of the Mediterranean in the tenth
and eleventh centuries. Its original form was unaltered for nearly four
centuries, when, in 1502, Flavio Gioja of Positano, near the town of
Amalfi, on the coast of Calabria, a place celebrated for its maritime
enterprise, improved upon the primitive rude and simple instrument by
suspending the needle on a centre, and enclosing it in a box. The
advantages of his invention were so great that his instrument was
universally adopted, and hence he gained the credit of being the
inventor of the mariner's compass, of which he was only the improver.
Long before the compass was used at sea, it had been employed by the
Chinese to direct the course of their caravans across the desert. For
this purpose a figure, placed in a waggon which led the caravan, was
so constructed that the arm and hand moved with perfect freedom, the
magnetic needle being attached to it; the hand, however, pointed to the
south, the negative end being fixed in it. The Chinese also used a
needle which was freely suspended in the air, attached to a silken
thread, and by this means they were able to determine the amount of
the western variation of the needle. It is possible that both the Chinese
and Arabs discovered the magnetic powers of the loadstone, although
the latter in their long voyages may have allowed the knowledge they
possessed to have been drawn from them by the astute Chinese; or,
vice versa, the Arabs may have obtained the knowledge which the
Chinese already possessed, and kept it secret from the western nations.
We all remember the wonderful adventures of Sinbad the Sailor, as
narrated in the Arabian Nights--how the ship in which he sailed was
attracted by a magnetic mountain, which finally drew all the iron bolts
and nails out of her. Now it happens that the author places Sinbad's
mountain in the same part of the world in which the Chinese say their
magnetic mountain exists. Ptolemy, in his geography, also describes a
magnetic mountain existing in the Chinese Seas. We may therefore, I

think, come to the conclusion, that the mariner's compass was known to
the ancients long before the Christian era, and that although disused
for centuries, the knowledge was never altogether lost.
CHAPTER TWO.
EARLY ENGLISH SHIPS (FROM A.D. 600 TO A.D. 1087.)
We Englishmen undoubtedly derive a large portion of our nautical
spirit from our Saxon ancestors, the first bands of whom came to the
shores of our tight little island under those sea-rovers known as Hengist
and Horsa, invited by the helpless Britons to defend them from the
attacks of the savage Picts and Scots. The enemies of the gallant heroes
I have named were apt to call them pirates; but as might made right in
most sublunary affairs during those dark and troubled ages of the
world's history, they looked upon the roving commissions they had
given themselves as perfectly honourable and lawful, and felt no small
amount of contempt for the rest of mankind who chose to stay at home
at ease by their firesides, while they were ploughing the ocean in search
of plunder and glory. I suspect that they had a strong preference for the
former.
After the Saxons had driven the ancient inhabitants of the island out of
the more fertile portions of the country, and had made themselves,
according to their notions, pretty comfortable in their new homes; they,
in a little time, in their turn, were sadly pestered by foreign invaders.
These were the Danes. Those hardy sons of the North, still more wild
and fierce than the Saxons, and still less scrupulous in their proceedings,
pleased with the appearance of the country which they had come over
to look at, settled themselves in every nook and corner of Old England
in which they could haul up their ships, and find a resting place for
their feet. I cannot help feeling a great respect for those old sea-kings.
They were heathens, and we must judge of them by the light which
they possessed, and not by any standard acknowledged in the present
civilised world. Bold, enterprising, and sagacious, their own country
confined and barren, they looked on