On the Spanish Main Part 12

On taking to the road again, wet and starving as they were, they found themselves in a network of rivers, some thirty of which they had to wade, during the day's march. The heavy rain drenched them as they clambered along across the jungle. They had but a little handful of fire that night, so that they could not dry nor warm themselves. They crouched about the "funk of green-wood," s.h.i.+vering in the smoke, chewing bullets to alleviate their hunger. They slept there in great misery, careless of what happened to them. "The Spaniards were but seldom in our thoughts," says Dampier, for the pirates thought only of guides and food, and feared their own Indian servants more than the enemy. A watch of two pirates kept a guard all that night, with orders to shoot any Indian who showed a sign of treachery. They rose before it was light and pushed on into the woods, biting on the bullet, or the quid, to help them to forget their hunger. By ten o'clock they arrived at the house of a brisk young Indian, who had been a servant to the Bishop of Panama, the man who gave the gold ring to Sawkins. Here they had a feast of yams and sweet potatoes, boiled into a broth with monkey-meat, a great comfort to those who were weak and sickly. They built a great fire in one of the huts, at which they dried their clothes, now falling to pieces from the continual soakings. They also cleaned their rusty gun-locks, and dried their powder, talking cheerily together, about the fire, while the rain roared upon the thatch. They were close beside the Rio Congo "and thus far," says Dampier, the most intelligent man among them, "we might have come in our Canoa, if I could have persuaded them to it."

As they sat in the hut, in the warmth of the blaze, that rainy May day, Lionel Wafer met with an accident. He was sitting on the ground, beside one of the pirates, who was drying his powder, little by little, half a pound at a time, in a great silver dish, part of the plunder of the cruise. "A careless Fellow pa.s.sed by with his Pipe lighted," and dropped some burning crumb of tobacco on to the powder, which at once blew up.

It scorched Wafer's knee very terribly, tearing off the flesh from the bone, and burning his leg from the knee to the thigh. Wafer, who was the surgeon of the party, had a bag full of salves and medicines. He managed to dress his wounds, and to pa.s.s a fairly comfortable night, "and being unwilling to be left behind by my Companions, I made hard s.h.i.+ft to jog on, and bear them Company," when camp was broken at daybreak.

Lame as he was, he kept up with his mates all that day, fording rivers "several times," and crossing country which would tax the strongest man, in good condition. "The last time we forded the River, it was so deep, that our tallest Men stood in the deepest place, and handed the sick, weak and short Men"; by which act of comrades.h.i.+p "we all got over safe."

Two of the pirates, "Robert Spratlin and William Bowman," could get no farther, and were left behind at the river. Dampier notes that his "Joint of Bambo, which I stopt at both Ends, closing it with Wax, so as to keep out any Water," preserved his "Journal and other Writings from being wet," though he had often to swim for it.

Drenched and tired, they pitched their huts by the river-bank, poor Wafer in torment from his knee, and the rest of them hungry and cold.

They had hardly finished their huts, when the river came down in a great wall of water, some sudden flood, due to a cloud-burst higher up. The flood sucked away their huts, and forced them to run to higher ground.

They pa.s.sed that night "straggling in the Woods, some under one Tree, some under another," with the thunder roaring overhead, and the lightning making a livid brightness all about them. The rain fell in torrents, and the pirates were far too wretched to keep watch. "So our Slaves, taking Opportunity, went away in the Night; all but one, who was hid in some hole, and knew nothing of their design, or else fell asleep." Among these slaves was a black man, Lionel Wafer's a.s.sistant, who carried the salves and medicaments. He took these with him when he slunk away, nor did he forget the "Chirurgeon's Gun and all his Money."

He left poor Wafer dest.i.tute there, in the forest, "depriv'd of wherewithal to dress my sore."

In the morning, they found that the river had fallen, but not so much as they had hoped. It was still too deep to ford, and the current ran very swiftly, but Dampier and some other swimmers managed to swim across.

They then endeavoured to get a line over, by which to ferry the men who could not swim, and the arms and powder they had left on the other bank. They decided to send a man back with a line, with instructions to pa.s.s the goods first, and then the men. "One George Gayny took the end of a Line and made it fast about his Neck, and left the other end ash.o.r.e, and one Man stood by the Line, to clear it away to him." When Gayny was about half way across, the line, which was kinky with the wet, got entangled. The man who was lighting it out checked it a moment to take out the kink, or to clear it. The check threw Gayny on his back, "and he that had the Line in his hand," instead of slacking away, or hauling in, so as to bring Gayny ash.o.r.e, "threw it all into the River after him, thinking he might recover himself." The stream was running down with great fierceness. Gayny had a bag of 300 dollars on his back, and this bag, with the weight of the line, dragged him under. He was carried down, and swept out of sight "and never seen more by us." "This put a period to that contrivance," adds Dampier grimly.

As they had no wish to emulate poor Gayny, they sought about "for a Tree to fell across the River." They cut it down, as soon as they had found it, "and it reached clean over." The goods and pirates were then crossed in safety. All hands soon forgot poor Gayny, for they came across a plantain walk in a clearing, and made a good breakfast, and stripped it of every fruit. They dismissed their guide here, with the gift of an axe head, and hired an old Indian to guide them farther towards the North Sea. The next day they reckoned themselves out of danger, and set forth cheerily.

For the last two days Wafer had been in anguish from his burnt knee. As the pirates made ready to leave their bivouac, on the tenth morning of the march, he declared that he could not "trudge it further through Rivers and Woods," with his knee as it was. Two other pirates who were broken with the going, declared that they, also, were too tired out to march. There was no talk, among the rest of the band, about shooting the weary ones, according to the order they had made at starting. Instead of "putting them out of their misery," they "took a very kind Leave,"

giving the broken men such stores as they could spare, and telling them to keep in good heart, and follow on when they had rested.

One of Wafer's comrades on this occasion was "Mr Richard Jopson, who had served an Apprentices.h.i.+p to a Druggist in London. He was an ingenious Man, and a good Scholar; he had with him a Greek Testament which he frequently read, and would translate _extempore_ into _English_, to such of the Company as were dispos'd to hear him." The other weary man was John Hingson, a mariner. They watched their mates march away through the woods, and then turned back, sick at heart, to the shelter of the huts, where the Indians looked at them sulkily, and flung them green plantains, "as you would Bones to a Dog." One of the Indians made a mess of aromatic herbs and dressed Wafer's burn, so that, in three weeks'

time, he could walk.

Dampier's party marched on through jungle, wading across rivers, which took them up to the chest, staggering through swamps and bogs, and clambering over rotten tree trunks, and across thorn brakes. They were wet and wretched and half starved, for their general food was macaw berries. Sometimes they killed a monkey, once Dampier killed a turkey, and once they came to a plantain patch where "we fed plentifully on plantains, both ripe and green." Their clothes were rotted into shreds, their boots were fallen to pieces, their feet were blistered and raw, their legs were mere skinless ulcers from the constant soaking. Their faces were swelled and b.l.o.o.d.y from the bites of mosquitoes and wood-ticks. "Not a Man of us but wisht the Journey at an End." Those who have seen "Bad Lands," or what is called "timber," or what is called "bush," will know what the party looked like, when, on the twenty-second day, they saw the North Sea. The day after that they reached the Rio Conception, and drifted down to the sea in some canoas, to an Indian village, built on the beach "for the benefit of Trade with the Privateers." About nine miles away, the Indians told them, was a French privateer s.h.i.+p, under one Captain Tristian, lying at La Sounds Key. They stayed a night at the village, and then went aboard the French s.h.i.+p, which was careened in a creek, with a brushwood fire on her side, cleaning away her barnacles for a roving cruise. Here they parted with their Indian guides, not without sorrow, for it is not pleasant to say "So Long" to folk with whom one has struggled, and lived, and suffered.

"We were resolved to reward them to their hearts' Content," said Dampier, much as a cowboy, at the end of the trail, will give sugar to his horse, as he bids him good-bye. The pirates spent their silver royally, buying red, blue and green beads, and knives, scissors, and looking-gla.s.ses, from the French pirates. They bought up the entire stock of the French s.h.i.+p, but even then they felt that they had not rewarded their guides sufficiently. They therefore subscribed a half-dollar piece each, in coin, as a sort of makeweight. With the toys, and the bags of silver, the delighted Indians pa.s.sed back to the isthmus, where they told golden stories of the kind whites, so that the Indians of the Main could not do enough for Wafer, and for the four pirates left behind on the march.

Dampier's party had marched in all 110 miles, over the most d.a.m.nable and heart-breaking country which the mind of man can imagine. They had marched "heavy," with their guns and bags of dollars; and this in the rainy season. They had starved and suffered, and s.h.i.+vered and agonised, yet they had lost but two men, poor Gayny, who was drowned, and (apparently) one who had slipped away on the third day of the march.

This man may have been the Spanish Indian. A note in Ringrose's narrative alludes to the capture of one of Dampier's party by the Spanish soldiers, and this may have been the man meant.

Two days later, when the Indian guides had gone, and the privateer was fit for the sea, they set sail for "the rendezvous of the fleet," which had been fixed for Springers' Key "another of the Samballoes Isles."

Perhaps the English pirates hove up the anchor, the grand privilege of the guests, aboard s.h.i.+p, to the old anchor tune, with its mournful and lovely refrain--

"I'll go no more a-roving with you, fair maid."

The old band of never-strikes were outward bound on another foray.

As for Wafer, and his two companions, they stayed with the Indians for some days, living on plantains (given very grudgingly), and wondering whether the Indians would kill them. The natives were kindly, as a rule, to the French and English, but it was now the rainy season, when they liked to stay in their huts, about their fires. The pirates "had in a Manner awed the Indian guides they took ... and made them go with them very much against their Wills." The Indians had resented this act of the pirates, and as days went by, and the guides did not return, they judged that the white men had killed them. They prepared "a great Pile of Wood to burn us," says Wafer, meaning to avenge their fellows, whom they "had supposed dead." But a friendly old chief dissuaded them from this act, a few hours before the intended execution.

While the three were living thus, in doubt whether they would be speared, or held as slaves, or sold to the Spaniards, the two pirates, Spratlin and Bowman, who had been left behind at the Rio Congo, arrived at the village. They had had a terrible journey together, "among the wild Woods and Rivers," wandering without guides, and living on roots and plantains. On their way, they had come upon George Gayny "lying dead in a Creek where the Eddy had driven him ash.o.r.e," "with the Rope twisted about him, and his Money at his Neck." They left the body where it lay, with its sack of silver dollars for which the poor man had come so far, and suffered so bitterly. They had no use for dollars at that time "being only in care how to work their way through a wild un-Known Country."

After a time, the Indians helped the five men a two days' march on their journey, and then deserted them, leaving them to find the path by themselves, with no better guide than a pocket compa.s.s. While crossing a river by the bole of a fallen tree, the man Bowman "a weakly Man, a Taylor by Trade," slipped into the current, and was carried off, with "400 Pieces of Eight" in his satchel. He was luckier than poor Gayny, for he contrived to get out. In time they reached the North Sea, and came to La Sounds Key, according to the prophecy of an Indian wizard.

Here they found Dampier's sloop, and rejoined their comrades, to the great delight of all hands. "Mr Wafer wore a clout about him, and was painted like an Indian," so that "'twas the better Part of an Hour, before one of the Crew cry'd out Here's our Doctor." There was a great feast that night at La Sounds Key, much drinking of rum and firing of small arms, and a grand ringing of bells in honour of the happy return.

In spite of all they could do, poor Mr Jopson, or Cobson, only lived for three or four days after he reached the s.h.i.+p. "His Fatigues, and his Drenching in the Water" had been too much for the poor man. He lay "languis.h.i.+ng" in his cot for a few days, babbling of the drugs of Bucklersbury, and thumbing his Greek Testament, and at last pa.s.sed in his checks, quietly and sadly, and "died there at La Sounds Key." They buried the poor man in the sands, with very genuine sorrow, and then bade the Indians adieu, and gave their dead mate a volley of guns, and so set sail, with the colours at half-mast, for "the more Eastern Isles of the Samballoes."

As for Captain Bartholomew Sharp, in the s.h.i.+p the _Trinity_, he continued to sail the South Seas with the seventy pirates left to him.

Some days after Dampier's party sailed, he took a Guayaquil s.h.i.+p, called the _San Pedro_, which he had taken fourteen months before off Panama.

Aboard her he found nearly 40,000 pieces of eight, besides silver bars, and ingots of gold. He also took a great s.h.i.+p called the _San Rosario_, the richest s.h.i.+p the buccaneers ever captured. She had many chests of pieces of eight aboard her, and a quant.i.ty of wine and brandy. Down in her hold, bar upon bar, "were 700 pigs of plate," rough silver from the mines, not yet fitted for the Lima mint. The pirates thought that this crude silver was tin, and so left it where it lay, in the hold of the _Rosario_ "which we turned away loose into the sea," with the stuff aboard her. One pig of the 700 was brought aboard the pirates "to make bullets of." About two-thirds of it was "melted and squandered," but some of it was left long afterwards, when the _Trinity_ touched at Antigua. Here they gave what was left to "a Bristol man," probably in exchange for a dram of rum. The Bristol man took it home to England "and sold it there for 75 sterling." "Thus," said Ringrose, "we parted with the richest booty we got in the whole voyage." Captain Bartholomew Sharp was responsible for the turning adrift of all this silver. Some of the pirates had asked leave to hoist it aboard the _Trinity_. But it chanced that, aboard the _Rosario_, was a Spanish lady, "the beautifullest Creature" that the "Eyes" of Captain Sharp ever beheld. The amorous captain was so inflamed by this beauty that he paid no attention to anything else.

In a very drunken and quarrelsome condition, the pirates worked the _Trinity_ round the Horn, and so home to Barbadoes. They did not dare to land there, for one of the King's frigates, H.M.S. _Richmond_, was lying at Bridgetown, and the pirates "feared lest the said frigate should seize us." They bore away to Antigua, where Ringrose, and "thirteen more," s.h.i.+pped themselves for England. They landed at Dartmouth on the 26th of March 1682. A few more of the company went ash.o.r.e at Antigua, and scattered to different haunts. Sharp and a number of pirates landed at Nevis, from whence they s.h.i.+pped for London. The s.h.i.+p the _Trinity_ was left to seven of the gang who had diced away all their money. What became of her is not known.

Sharp and a number of his men were arrested in London, and tried for piracy, but the Spanish Amba.s.sador, who brought the charge, was without evidence and could not obtain convictions. They pleaded that "the Spaniards fired at us first," and that they had acted only in self-defence, so they 'scaped hanging, though Sharp admits that they "were very near it." Three more of the crew were laid by the heels at Jamaica, and one of these was "wheedled into an open confession," and condemned, and hanged. "The other two stood it out, and escaped for want of witnesses."

Of the four men so often quoted in this narrative, only one, so far as we know, died a violent death. This was Basil Ringrose, who was shot at Santa Pecaque a few years later. It is not known how Dampier, Wafer, and Sharp died, but all lived adventurously, and went a-roving, for many years after the _Trinity_ dropped her anchor off Antigua.

They were of that old breed of rover whose port lay always a little farther on; a little beyond the sky-line. Their concern was not to preserve life, "but rather to squander it away"; to fling it, like so much oil, into the fire, for the pleasure of going up in a blaze. If they lived riotously let it be urged in their favour that at least they lived. They lived their vision. They were ready to die for what they believed to be worth doing. We think them terrible. Life itself is terrible. But life was not terrible to them; for they were comrades; and comrades and brothers-in-arms are stronger than life. Those who "live at home at ease" may condemn them. They are free to do so. The old buccaneers were happier than they. The buccaneers had comrades, and the strength to live their own lives. They may laugh at those who, lacking that strength, would condemn them with the hate of impotence.

CHAPTER XVI

s.h.i.+PS AND RIGS

Galleys--Dromonds--Gallia.s.ses--Pinnaces--Pavesses--Top-arming-- Banners--Boats

Until the reign of Henry VIII. the s.h.i.+pping of these islands was of two kinds. There were longs.h.i.+ps, propelled, for the most part, by oars, and used generally as wars.h.i.+ps; and there were rounds.h.i.+ps, or dromonds, propelled by sails, and used as a rule for the carriage of freight. The dromond, in war-time, was sometimes converted into a wars.h.i.+p, by the addition of fighting-castles fore and aft. The longs.h.i.+p, in peace time, was no doubt used as a trader, as far as her shallow draught, and small beam, allowed.

The longs.h.i.+p, or galley, being, essentially, an oar vessel, had to fulfil certain simple conditions. She had to be light, or men might not row her. She had to be long, or she might not carry enough oarsmen to propel her with sufficient swiftness. Her lightness, and lack of draught, made it impossible for her to carry much provision; while the number of her oars made it necessary for her to carry a large crew of rowers, in addition to her soldiers and sail trimmers. It was therefore impossible for such a s.h.i.+p to keep the seas for any length of time, even had their build fitted them for the buffetings of the stormy home waters. For short cruises, coast work, rapid forays, and "shock tactics," she was admirable; but she could not stray far from a friendly port, nor put out in foul weather. The rounds.h.i.+p, dromond, or cargo boat, was often little more than two beams long, and therefore far too slow to compete with s.h.i.+ps of the galley type. She could stand heavy weather better than the galley, and she needed fewer hands, and could carry more provisions, but she was almost useless as a s.h.i.+p of war.

In the reign of Henry VIII. the s.h.i.+pwrights of this country began to build s.h.i.+ps which combined something of the strength, and capacity of the dromond, with the length and fineness of the galley. The s.h.i.+ps they evolved were mainly dependent upon their sails, but they carried a bank of oars on each side, for use in light weather. The galley, or longs.h.i.+p, had carried guns on a platform at the bows, pointing forward. But these new vessels carried guns in broadside, in addition to the bow-chasers.

These broadside guns were at first mounted _en barbette_, pointing over the bulwarks. Early in the sixteenth century the port-hole, with a hinged lid, was invented, and the guns were then pointed through the s.h.i.+p's sides. As these s.h.i.+ps carried more guns than the galleys, they were built more strongly, lest the shock of the explosions should shake them to pieces. They were strong enough to keep the seas in bad weather, yet they had enough of the galley build to enable them to sail fast when the oars were laid inboard. It is thought that they could have made as much as four or five knots an hour. These s.h.i.+ps were known as gallia.s.ses,[18] and galleons, according to the proportions between their lengths and beams. The galleons were shorter in proportion to their breadth than the gallia.s.ses.[19] There was another kind of vessel, the pinnace, which had an even greater proportionate length than the gallia.s.se. Of the three kinds, the galleon, being the shortest in proportion to her breadth, was the least fitted for oar propulsion.

[Footnote 18: See Charnock's "Marine Architecture."]

[Footnote 19: See Corbett's "Drake and the Tudor Navy."]

[Ill.u.s.tration: AN ELIZABETHAN GALLEON]

During the reign of Elizabeth, the galleon, or great s.h.i.+p, and the gallia.s.se, or cruiser, grew to gradual perfection, in the hands of our great sailors. If we look upon the galleon or great s.h.i.+p as the prototype of the s.h.i.+p of the line, and on the gallia.s.se as the prototype of the frigate, and on the pinnace as the prototype of the sloop, or corvette, we shall not be far wrong. They were, of course, in many ways inferior to the s.h.i.+ps which fought in the great French wars, two centuries later, but their general appearance was similar. The rig was different, but not markedly so, while the hulls of the s.h.i.+ps presented many points of general likeness. The Elizabethan s.h.i.+ps were, however, very much smaller than most of the rated s.h.i.+ps in use in the eighteenth century.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A GALLIa.s.sE]

The galleon, or great s.h.i.+p, at the end of the sixteenth century, was sometimes of as much as 900 tons. She was generally low in the waist, with a high square forecastle forward, a high quarter-deck, raised above the waist, just abaft the main-mast, and a p.o.o.p above the quarter-deck, sloping upward to the taffrail. These high outerworks were shut off from the open waist (the s.p.a.ce between the main-mast and the forecastle) by wooden bulkheads, which were pierced for small, quick-firing guns. Below the upper, or spar deck, she had a gun-deck, if not more than one, with guns on each side, and right aft. The gallia.s.se was sometimes flush-decked, without p.o.o.p and forecastle, and sometimes built with both, but she was never so "high charged" as the galleon. The pinnace was as the gallia.s.se, though smaller.

The galleon's waist was often without bulwarks, so that when she went into action it became necessary to give her sail trimmers, and spar-deck fighting men, some protection from the enemy's shot.[20] Sometimes this was done by the hauling up of waist-trees, or spars of rough untrimmed timber, to form a sort of wooden wall. Sometimes they rigged what was called a top-arming, or top armour, a strip of cloth like the "war girdle" of the Norse longs.h.i.+ps, across the unprotected s.p.a.ce. This top-arming was of canvas some two bolts deep (3 feet 6 inches), gaily painted in designs of red, yellow, green, and white. It gave no protection against shot, but it prevented the enemy's gunners from taking aim at the deck, or from playing upon the hatchways with their murderers and pateraroes. It also kept out boarders, and was a fairly good s.h.i.+eld to catch the arrows and crossbow bolts shot from the enemy's tops. Sometimes the top-arming was of scantling, or thin plank, in which case it was called a pavesse. Pavesses were very beautifully painted with armorial bearings, arranged in s.h.i.+elds, a sort of reminiscence of the old Norse custom of hanging the s.h.i.+p's sides with s.h.i.+elds. Another way was to mask the open s.p.a.ce with a ranged hemp cable, which could be cleared away after the fight.

[Footnote 20: See Sir W. Monson, "Naval Tracts," and Sir R. Hawkins, "Observations," etc.]

The s.h.i.+ps were rigged much as they were rigged two centuries later. The chief differences were in the rigging of the bowsprit and of the two after masts. Forward the s.h.i.+ps had bowsprits, on which each set a spritsail, from a spritsail yard. The foremast was stepped well forward, almost over the spring of the cut.w.a.ter. Generally, but not always, it was made of a single tree (pine or fir). If it was what was known as "a made mast," it was built up of two, or three, or four, different trees, judiciously sawn, well seasoned, and then hooped together. Masts were pole-masts until early in the reign of Elizabeth, when a fixed topmast was added. By Drake's time they had learned that a movable topmast was more useful, and less dangerous for s.h.i.+ps sailing in these waters. The caps and tops were made of elm wood. The sails on the foremast were foresail and foretop-sail, the latter much the smaller and less important of the two. They were set on wooden yards, the foreyard and foretopsail-yard, both of which could be sent on deck in foul weather.

The main-mast was stepped a little abaft the beam, and carried three sails, the main-sail, the main topsail, and a third, the main topgallant-sail. This third sail did not set from a yard until many years after its introduction. It began life like a modern "moon-raker,"

a triangular piece of canvas, setting from the truck, or summit of the topmast, to the yardarm of the main topsail-yard. Up above it, on a bending light pole, fluttered the great colours, a George's cross of scarlet on a ground of white. Abaft the main-mast were the mizzen, carrying one sail, on a lateen yard, one arm of which nearly touched the deck; and the bonaventure mizzen (which we now call the jigger) rigged in exactly the same way. Right aft, was a banner pole for the display of colours. These masts were stepped, stayed, and supported almost exactly as masts are rigged to-day, though where we use iron, and wire, they used wood and hemp. The shrouds of the fore and main masts led outboard, to "chains" or strong platforms projecting from the s.h.i.+p's sides. These "chains" were clamped to the s.h.i.+p's sides with rigid links of iron. The shrouds of the after masts were generally set up within the bulwarks. On each mast, just above the lower yard, yet below the masthead, was a fighting-top built of elm wood and gilded over. It was a little platform, resting on battens, and in ancient times it was circular, with a diameter of perhaps six or seven feet. It had a parapet round it, inclining outboard, perhaps four feet in height. It was entered by a lubber's hole in the flooring, through which the shrouds pa.s.sed. In each top was an arm chest containing Spanish darts, crossbows, longbows, arrows, bolts, and perhaps granadoes. When the s.h.i.+p went into battle a few picked marksmen were stationed in the tops with orders to search the enemy's decks with their missiles, particularly the afterparts, where the helmsman stood. In later days the tops were armed with light guns, of the sorts known as slings and fowlers; but top-fighting with firearms was dangerous, as the gunners carried lighted matches, and there was always a risk of sparks, from the match, or from the wads, setting fire to the sails. The running rigging was arranged much as running rigging is arranged to-day, though its quality, in those times, was probably worse than nowadays. The rope appears to have been very fickle stuff which carried away under slight provocation. The blocks were bad, for the sheaves were made of some comparatively soft wood, which swelled, when wet, and jammed. Lignum vitae was not used for block-sheaves until after the Dutch War in Cromwell's time. Iron blocks were in use in the time of Henry VIII. but only as fair-leads for chain topsail sheets, and as s.n.a.t.c.hes for the boarding of the "takkes." The shrouds and stays, were of hawser stuff, extremely thick nine-stranded hemp; and all those parts exposed to chafing (as from a sail, or a rope) were either served, or neatly covered up with matting. The matting was made by the sailors, of rope, or white line, plaited curiously. When in its place it was neatly painted, or tarred, much as one may see it in Norwegian s.h.i.+ps at the present day. The yardarms, and possibly the chains, were at one time fitted with heavy steel sickles, projecting outboard, which were kept sharp, so that, when running alongside an enemy, they might cut her rigging to pieces. These sickles were known as sheer-hooks. They were probably of little use, for they became obsolete before the end of the reign of Queen Elizabeth.

[Ill.u.s.tration: AN ELIZABETHAN GALLEON]

Most of the sails used in these old s.h.i.+ps were woven in Portsmouth on hand-looms. The canvas was probably of good quality, as good perhaps as the modern stout No. 1, for hand-woven stuff is always tighter, tougher, better put together, than that woven by the big steam-loom.

It was at one time the custom to decorate the sail, with a design of coloured cloth, cut out, as one cuts out a paper pattern, and st.i.tched upon its face with sail twine. In the royal s.h.i.+ps this design was of lions rampant, cut out of scarlet say. The custom of carrying such coloured canvas appears to have died out by the end of the sixteenth century. Perhaps flag signalling had come into vogue making it necessary to abandon anything that might tend to confuse the colours. About the same time we abandoned the custom of making our s.h.i.+ps gay with little flags, of red and white linen, in guidons like those on a trooper's lance. All through the Tudor reigns our s.h.i.+ps carried them, but for some reason the practice was allowed to die out. A last relic of it still flutters on blue water in the little ribbons of the wind-vane, on the weather side the p.o.o.p, aboard sailing s.h.i.+ps.