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The great bulk of the pilgrims make their way by sea to the port of Jaffa. A number of families will charter a vessel amongst them, all bringing their own provisions, which are of the simplest and cheapest kind. The vessels employed in this service are usually Greek brigs or brigantines and schooners, and the number of passengers stowed in them is almost always horribly excessive.

The men on board barely escaped with their lives to the shore. They had saved nothing except what they wore, the few arms they carried and one small boat. Putting Diego de Ribero and three sailors in the boat and directing them to coast along the shore, Nicuesa with the rest struggled westward in search of the two brigantines and the other three ships.

When the first two brigantines were launched on the Lake of Tezcuco by the Spaniards, Cortes took Montezuma with him to sail upon the lake, soon leaving the Aztec canoes far behind. They went to a Peñón or rocky hill where Montezuma preserved game for his own hunting, and not even the highest nobility were allowed to hunt there on pain of death.

It will be seen how he narrowly escaped with his life: "The day after mass, in pursuance of the arrangements already mentioned, the seven brigantines with more than three thousand canoes of our allies left the encampment; and I, with twenty-five horses and all the other force I had, including the seventy-five men from the division at Tacuba, took up the line of march and entered the city, where I distributed the troops in the following manner: There were three streets leading from where we entered to the market-place, called by the Indians Tianguizco, and the whole square in which it is situated is called Tlaltelulco; one of these streets was the principal avenue to the marketplace, which I ordered your Majesty's treasurer and auditor to take, with seventy men and more than fifteen or twenty thousand of our allies, and rear-guard consisting of seven or eight horses.

Barks, ketches, snows, and brigantines carried fore-and-aft rigs in connection with square sails on either mast, but now for the first time two masts were rigged fore and aft, and the square sails wholly discarded. The advantages of the new rig were quickly discovered.

In this case, the two brigantines had run upon a spit which separates that lake or lagoon from the sea. The two men who had gone in search of the five brigantines, found them in the river Tampico, so that the whole company met at the end of eight days, all barefooted and almost entirely naked, having only some scanty coverings of the skins of deer, bears, and other animals.

When morning broke and the storm disappeared there were no signs of the ships or brigantines. Nicuesa ran along the shore to search for them, got himself embayed in the mouth of a small river, swollen by recent rains, and upon the sudden subsidence of the water coincident with the ebb of the tide, his ship took ground, fell over on her bilge and was completely wrecked.

The crown officers immediately invited all who wished to man the brigantines and make war on the Caribs, offering them as pay half of the product of the sale of the slaves they should make, the other half to be applied to the purchase of provisions. The brigantines were unfit for service.

The brigantines of the rovers were numerous, no doubt; but none of them was large; one man of war, which in the royal navy would hardly rank as a fourth rate, would easily deal with them all in succession; and the lawful spoils of the enemies of mankind would much more than defray the charges of the expedition. Bellamont was charmed with this plan, and recommended it to the King.

Cortes sustained this fire for a short time in order to draw the canoes as far toward him as possible, then he let loose the brigantines. These brigantines were boats propelled by oars and sails on a single mast. They carried about a score of armed men and were very well and stoutly built. I suppose them to have been something like a modern man-o'-war cutter.