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modern light cruiser would have against a super-Dreadnought. So quinqueremes, and plenty of them, had to be built, and the Roman dockyards were busy.
    Fortunately, a Carthaginian quinquereme had been driven ashore on the Italian coast two or three years before, and had been salved. Now she served as a model, and the shipbuilding feat that followed might make our Admiralty green with envy, if the tale of it is true. In sixty days, so the Romans said, they built a fleet of a hundred five-bankers and twenty triremes, and you may believe them if you feel so inclined. I have my doubts.
    Meanwhile, the crews were being trained. Thirty thousand land-lubbers had to be taught to keep time and length, to pull and back water, to spurt or to go easy, all like one man; and you can imagine the heart- breaking kind of task it was. The story says that great five-tiered stages were erected on the shore, and that the oarsmen were trained on these to swing, and pull, and manœuvre to the sound of the trainer's pipe. It sounds like a fairy tale, but perhaps it is true. One way or another the fleet was manned, and it cleared from port, bound for Sicily, almost as soon as the last vessel was in the water.
    So now, if you please, we are going to go on board the flagship of the new Consul Gaius Duilius, and we shall see how the new fleet and the new crews behave. Let us take a look at our ship and get a general idea of her build and equipment. She is a big ship for the time, though she would look small enough beside a modern battleship. The noticeable thing about her is her length, for the warships are of quite a different build from the bluff-bowed merchantmen. Along the water-line she measures 168 feet; her breadth is only 18, and her depth from the deck to the keel, 26 & 1/2. She draws 11 & 1/2. to 12 feet of water, and her tonnage is 534.
    Her long sharp bow projects just at the water-line, and bears three short, stout rams tipped with bronze. This is because the Carthaginian boats will have rams too, and one never knows but it may be necessary to use ours; but the Admiral doesn't mean to ram if he can help it. He has other things in his mind, as we shall see. On either side of the bow a great eye is painted, looking forward; for the ship must be able to see her way. Two anchors hang at the catheads, one of the usual shape, another shaped almost like a mushroom.
    Now look along her deck. Down the centre line runs a long, narrow gangway, spreading out at bow and stern into a forecastle and a quarter-deck. On either side of the gangway the benches of the topmost bank of oarsmen run across to the side of the ship. There are 35 on each side, making 70 rowers for this deck. The deck below will have 66, the next 62, the fourth 58, and the lowest 54, so that we have 310 oarsmen in all. As you can imagine, they are packed pretty close, and are none too comfortable. The oars range in length from the twenty-foot sweeps of the upper deck to the eight-foot paddles of the lowermost row. If the thalamite, as the Greeks called the rower of the lowest bench, has to pull the shortest oar, he makes up for it by having the poorest chance if anything goes wrong. Preserve me from being a thalamite when the enemy's ram comes crashing through the planking, and the water rushes in at the gaping hole, and the stricken ship heels and settles down!
    Amidships rises the mainmast. When we get to sea it will bear a square sail, adorned with a picture of the Roman twins and their she-wolf nurse, to show that we carry the Admiral. Fore and aft are steps for two lighter masts which bear lateen sails to help us in head winds or in casting the ship's head round; with a fair wind we don't need them, and they are unstepped and the big square sail used alone. But near the bow we have an extra mast, the ugliest thing you can imagine. It is short and thick, and carries neither yard nor sail. Instead, a long gangway of stout timber is fastened to it by a hinge and collar at the foot of