II
THE EVOLUTION OF NAVIES
The root idea of the warship, as has already been suggested in these pages, was the evolution of a means whereby soldiers could fight each other on the water as well as on the land. In the course of many thousand years that idea has often been almost entirely lost sight of, but it has nearly always been reverted to in times of great stress and of life and death struggles. It is lost sight of to-day, but sooner or later is bound to re-appear as the integral factor.
The elementary ship has often been pictured as a log of wood used by prehistoric man to cross rivers that were wider than his bridging appliances and too deep to ford. The hollowing out of the tree trunk and the shaping of it into rude boat form were early and natural evolutions, so early that the most ancient historical records show us the ship in a comparatively late stage of development.
Egyptian monuments dating from B.C. 2500 or thereabouts show boats propelled by several rowers, fitted with some species of sail and steered by paddles
