"
"Howsomever," remarked Willis, "all the mariners in the French fleet
could not convince me that the Pyrenean mountains are only a hundred
years old."
"My brother is only speaking metaphorically," said Fritz; "when the
crown of Spain was assigned to the Duke of Anjou, his grandfather
said--_Qu il n'y avait plus de Pyrenees_. He meant by that simply,
that France and Spain being governed by the same prince, the moral
barrier between them existed no longer. The formidable mountains still
stood for all that, and he who removes them would certainly be
possessed of extraordinary power."
"I am always putting my foot in it," said Willis, "when the yarn is
about the land; let us talk of the sea for a bit. Who built the first
ship?"
"Well," replied Fritz, "I should say that the first ship was the ark."
"Whence we may infer," added Jack, "that Noah was the first admiral."
"We learn from the Scriptures," continued Fritz, "that the first
navigators were the children of Noah, and it appears from profane
history that the earliest attempts at navigation were manifested near
where the ark rested; consequently, we may fairly presume that the art
of ship-building arose from the traditions of the deluge and the ark."
"In that case, the art in question dates very far back."
"Yes, since it dates from 2348 years before the birth of Christ; but
the human race degenerated, the traditions were forgotten, and
navigation was confined to planks, rafts, bark canoes, or the trunk of
a tree hollowed out by fire.
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