All About Engines

CHAPTER XI ■ Engines for Ships JUST as the railway facilitated intercourse between town and town, so the steamship brought nations separated by wide seas into close and intimate rela- tion. In olden times great civilisations grew and flourished along the shores of the Mediterranean, and ships laden with merchandise ploughed the waters of the tideless sea. Of the remote interiors of Europe, Asia, and Africa little was known, while what lay westwards, across the vast unexplored ocean, was still more a matter of speculation and a field for fancy. When ships sailed southwards or eastwards from Aden, or ventured past the frowning rock of Gibraltar, they hugged the coastline, and the sailors told tales wonderful and terrible of those who were supposed to have ventured into the unknown. The great oceans began to yield up their secrets at the end of the fifteenth century, when Vasco da Gama and other navigators made longer voyages than any which had been attempted before. Gradu- ally, as the centuries passed, Portuguese, Dutch, French, and British seamen acquired greater con- fidence and skill. An oceanic voyage, though fraught with peril and discomfort, no longer called for the reckless daring of pioneers and adventurers; but the s 273