upon some holiday galley, splendidly equipped, wherein to sail over
the sea.

When of old, glory-seeking Jason, attended by his promising young
lieutenants, Castor and Pollux, embarked on that hardy adventure to
Colchis, the brave planks of the good ship Argos he trod, its model a
swan to behold.

And when Trojan Aeneas wandered West, and discovered the pleasant land
of Latium, it was in the fine craft Bis Taurus that he sailed: its
stern gloriously emblazoned, its prow a leveled spear.

And to the sound of sackbut and psaltery, gliding down the Nile, in
the pleasant shade of its pyramids to welcome mad Mark, Cleopatra was
throned on the cedar quarter-deck of a glorious gondola, silk and
satin hung; its silver plated oars, musical as flutes. So, too, Queen
Bess was wont to disport on old Thames.

And tough Torf-Egill, the Danish Sea-king, reckoned in his stud, a
slender yacht; its masts young Zetland firs; its prow a seal, dog-like
holding a sword-fish blade. He called it the Grayhound, so swift was
its keel; the Sea-hawk, so blood-stained its beak.

And groping down his palace stairs, the blind old Doge Dandolo, oft
embarked in his gilded barge, like the lord mayor setting forth in
civic state from Guildhall in his chariot. But from another sort of
prow leaped Dandolo, when at Constantinople, he foremost sprang
ashore, and with a right arm ninety years old, planted the standard of
St. Mark full among the long chin-pennons of the long-bearded Turks.