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Having thoroughly searched, without result, the entire area of the flat country for a space of eight or nine square miles immediately opposite the spot where the brigantine was first anchored, we got under way again and, under fore-and-aft canvas only, moved the ship some three miles farther up the estuary, intently studying the country on our starboard hand, meanwhile, through the ship's telescope, on the look-out for any object suggestive of a stranded hulk overgrown with creepers.
The fore-and-aft rig alone would enable a vessel to tack, as it is called, and this could only be used with craft of moderate tonnage. The expedition sailed in October 1562. They called at the Canaries, where they were warmly entertained. They went on to Sierra Leone, where they collected 300 negroes.
He liked the yellow fore-and-aft buckboards, he enjoyed the shining buggies, especially when their wheels were painted red; dog-carts and victorias ranked high in his esteem. He knew, to be sure, very little about horses; their most salient "points" escaped him: he gave indiscriminate approval to every well-groomed animal attached to a "stylish" vehicle, and the more the merrier!
Now bear straight at the center, master-shipman. Ere yonder sun sets we will bring a red ship back as a gift to our ladies, or never look upon a lady's face again." The art of sailing into a wind had not yet been invented, nor was there any fore-and-aft canvas, save for small headsails with which a vessel could be turned.
The strange and mysterious craft was a brigantine of that mixed construction, which is much used, even in the most ancient and classical seas of the other hemisphere, and which is supposed to unite the advantages of both a square and of a fore-and-aft rigged vessel, but which is nowhere seen to display the same beauty of form, and symmetry of equipment, as on the coasts of this Union.
Twelve or thirteen hours in the saddle, even in a Christian land and a Christian climate, and on a good horse, is a tiresome journey; but in an oven like Syria, in a ragged spoon of a saddle that slips fore-and-aft, and "thort-ships," and every way, and on a horse that is tired and lame, and yet must be whipped and spurred with hardly a moment's cessation all day long, till the blood comes from his side, and your conscience hurts you every time you strike if you are half a man, it is a journey to be remembered in bitterness of spirit and execrated with emphasis for a liberal division of a man's lifetime.
The interval was passed by all in feverish impatience, and by one of the party in secret and extreme concern of mind. Captain Wicks was a fore-and-aft sailor; he could take a schooner through a Scotch reel, felt her mouth and divined her temper like a rider with a horse; she, on her side, recognising her master and following his wishes like a dog.
One laughs with sheer pleasure at a smart piece of manoeuvring, as at a manifestation of a living creature's quick wit and graceful precision. Of those three varieties of fore-and-aft rig, the cutter the racing rig par excellence is of an appearance the most imposing, from the fact that practically all her canvas is in one piece.
At 8 a.m. the course was altered, our fore-and-aft canvas was set again, and we were once more gliding along swiftly and smoothly through the water, to the great relief of every one on board. The day was lovely, and though it was warm, a pleasant breeze throughout the ship prevented our feeling uncomfortably hot. Saturday, November 18th.
It was the fore-and-aft gear that was broken the thing that leads aft from the forward part of the horse and is made fast to the thing that pulls the wagon. In America this would have been a heavy leathern strap; but, all over the continent it is nothing but a piece of rope the size of your little finger clothes-line is what it is.
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