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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
CHAP. XIX. DOUBLE RUDDERS
I19
ment which he reminds his lover involves the reversal of the ordinary use of the two rudders :—
" L' ran timon leva suso
L' altro leggier tien giuso,
Ma convien levar mano
Non mica corn soleâno,
Ma per contraro, e face
Cosi '1 guidar verace." (P. 275.)
A representation of a vessel over the door of the Leaning Tower at Pisa shows this arrangement, which is also discernible in the frescoes of galley-fights by Spinello Aretini, in the Municipal Palace at Siena.
[Godinho de Eredia (1613), describing the smaller vessels of Malacca which he calls halos in eh. 13, De Embarcafôes, says : " At the poop they have two rudders, one on each side to steer with." E por poupa dos bâllos, tern 2 lêmes, burn en cada lado pera o governo. (Malacca, l'Inde mérid. et le Cathay, Bruxelles, 1882, 4to, f. 26.)—H. C.]
The midship rudder seems to have been the more usual in the western seas, and the double quarter-rudders in the Mediterranean. The former are sometimes styled Navarresques and the latter Latins. Yet early seals of some of the Cinque Ports show vessels with the double rudder ; one of which (that of Winchelsea) is given in the cut.
In the Mediterranean the latter was still in occasional use late in the 16th century. Captain Pantero Pantera in his book, L'Armata Navale (Rome, 1614, p. 44), says that the Galeasses, or great galleys, had the helm alla Navarresca, but also a great oar on each side of it to assist in turning the ship. And I observe that the great galeasses which precede the Christian line of battle at Lepanto, in one of the frescoes by Vasari in the Royal Hall leading to the Sistine Chapel, have the quarter-rudder very distinctly.
The Chinese appear occasionally to employ it, as seems to be indicated in a woodcut of a vessel of war which I have traced from a Chinese book in the National Library at Paris. (See above, p. 37.) [For the Chinese words for rudder, see p. 126 of J. Edkins' article on Chinese Names for Boats and Boat Gear, Jour. N. China Br. R. As. Soc. N.S. XI. 1876.—H. C.] It is also used by certain craft of the Indian Archipelago, as appears from Mr. Wallace's description of the Prau in which he sailed from Macassar to the Aru Islands. And on the Caspian, it is stated in Smith's " Diet. of Antiquities " (art. Gubernaculunz), the practice remained in force till late times. A modern traveller was nearly wrecked on that sea, because the two rudders were in the hands of two pilots who spoke different languages, and did not understand each other !
(Besides the works quoted see Jai, Archéologie Navale, II. 437-438, and Capmany, Illemorias, III. 61.)
[Major Sykes remarks (Persia, eh. xxiii.) : " Some unrecorded event, probably the sight of the unseaworthy craft, which had not an ounce of iron in their composition, made our travellers decide that the risks of the sea were too great, so that we have the pleasure of accompanying them back to Kermán and thence northwards to Khorasán. "—H. C.]
NOTE 4.—So also at Bander Abbási Tavernier says it was so unhealthy that foreigners could not stop there beyond March ; everybody left it in April. Not a hundredth part of the population, says Kämpfer, remained in the city. Not a beggar would stop for any reward ! The rich went to the towns of the interior or to the cool recesses of the mountains, the poor took refuge in the palm-groves at the distance of a day or two from the city. A place called 'Ishin, some 12 miles north of the city, was a favourite resort of the European and Hindu merchants. Here were fine gardens, spacious baths, and a rivulet of fresh and limpid water.
The custom of lying in water is mentioned also by Sir John Maundevile, and it was adopted by the Portuguese when they occupied Insular Hormuz, as P. della Valle and Linschoten relate. The custom is still common during great heats, in Sind and Mekran (Sir B. F.).
An anonymous ancient geography (Liber funioris Pliilosophi) speaks of a people
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