A Ship, Early Fourteenth Century.
A very curious and interesting MS. (Add. 27,695) recently acquired by the British Museum, which appears to be of Genoese Art, and of date about A.D. 1420, enables us to give a valuable illustration of our subject. It occupies the whole page of the MS.; we have only given the lower half, of the size of the original. It appears to represent the siege of Tripoli. The city is in the upper part of the page; our cut represents the harbour and a suburb of the town. It is clearly indicated that it is low water, and the high-water mark is shown in the drawing by a different colour. Moreover, a timber pier will be noticed, stretching out between high and low-water mark, and a boat left high and dry by the receding tide. In the harbour are ships of various kinds, and especially several of the galleys of which we have spoken. The war-galley may be found fully illustrated in Witsen’s “Sheep’s Bouw,” p. 186.
A Harbour in the Fourteenth Century.
An Early Representation of the Whale Fishery.
The same MS., in the lower margin of folio 9 v., has an exceedingly interesting picture of a whaling scene, which we are very glad to introduce as a further illustration of the commerce and shipping of this early period. It will be seen that the whale has been killed, and the successful adventurers are “cutting out” the blubber very much after the modern fashion.