of establishing a fresh route to India, events which changed the seats and centres of commerce and gave an astounding impetus to shipping, it may be desirable to furnish an outline of the character of the sea-*faring population at the period to which we now refer, their customs and superstitions, and their love for display in the decoration of their vessels.
Decorations and traditionary emblems of ships. To cover the unsightly appearance of the resin and pitch necessary to render their vessels tight and to preserve them from decay, pigments were used of various colours, among which white, red lead, and vermilion were long in the highest favour. Green, from its resemblance to sea water, was adopted by piratical cruisers and explorers, to avoid observation. Princes, and other opulent personages, frequently decorated their ships in purple, richly gilt, with highly ornamented poops and sterns, and figure-heads of the most beautiful devices their artists could conceive. In these decorations the taste of the Middle Ages appears to have adhered to the traditionary emblems of the ancients. About the middle of the thirteenth century the Genoese, who, in their encounters with the Pisans, had previously painted their vessels green, assumed the colour of white, dotted with vermilion crosses—the cross gules upon a silver ground being the shield of St. George, the knight both of England and Genoa. In the sixteenth century, red had become the prevailing colour, though frequently black and white were intermingled in foliage, in varied lines or in capricious zigzags; and, sometimes, the ground was entirely black, the ornaments alone being of a dazzling vermilion. Except, however, on special occasions, the colour of mourning, unrelieved by any other, seldom
