HISTORY OF MARINE ARCHITECTURE.

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character of soldiers. In the prosecution of his enterprise, the courage ofGuiscard was assailed by every form of danger and mischance. In the mostpropitious season of the year, as his fleet passed along the coast, a storm ofwind and snow unexpectedly arose. The Adriatic was swelled by the ragingblast of the south, and a new shipwreck confirmed the old infamy of theAcroceraunian rocks. The sails, the masts, and the oars, were shattered ortorn away, the sea and shore were covered with the fragments of vessels, witharms, and dead bodies, and the greatest part of the provisions were eitherdrowned or damaged. The ducal galley was laboriously rescued from thewaves, and Robert halted seven days on the adjacent cape, to collect the relicsof his loss, and revive the drooping spirits of his soldiers. The Normans wereno longer the bold and experienced mariners, who had explored the ocean fromGreenland to mount Atlas, and who smiled at the petty dangers of the Medi-terranean. They had wept during the tempest: they were alarmed by thehostile approach of the Venetians, who had been solicited by the prayers andpromises of the Byzantine court. The first day’s action was not disadvan-tageous to Bohemond, a beardless youth, who led the naval powers of hisfather. All night the gallies of the republic lay on their anchors in the formof a crescent, and the victory of the second day was decided by the dexterity oftheir evolutions, the station of their archers, the weight of their javelins, andthe borrowed aid of the Greek fire. The Apulian and Raguscan vessels fled tothe shore, several were cut from their cables, and dragged away by the con-querors, and a sally from the town carried slaughter and dismay to the tents ofthe Norman duke.”

Such was the fate of the armament and misguided ambition of the brave,but impolitic Robert Guiscard, and such were the dawnings of that naval glorywhich the Venetians afterwards acquired. But the fiery ambition of the Nor-man, though checked, was not depressed ; for notwithstanding Durazzo deriveda very seasonable and unexpected relief in consequence of the victory, yet theintrepidity of Robert disdained to raise the siege, and the impotence of his foes,in respect to military force, prevented them from even attempting to compel himto the measure. The attempt was accordingly most resolutely persevered in,when Alexis, Emperor of the East, with a resolution and activity that had rarelybeen equalled, and never surpassed, in the annals even of ancient Rome, drewtogether an army amounting to seventy thousand men, in the ardent hope ofrepelling the invader, and disabling him, at one stroke, from making any

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