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These grand officials were not required, however, to do much hard work at rowing, for there were two shallops provided, manned by strong men, to tow the skiff. In this way the skiff rowed to and fro over the sea, and then passed along the fleet, saluted every where by the shouts of the crews upon the yards and in the rigging, and by the guns of the ships.
But the tale is far frae finished; for mariners say that once a year, on a certain night, if ye stand on the Borranpoint, ye will see the infernal shallops coming snoring through the Solway; ye will hear the same laugh, and song, and mirth, and minstrelsy, which our ancestors heard; see them bound over the sandbanks and sunken rocks like sea-gulls, cast their anchor in Blawhooly Bay, while the shadowy figure lowers down the boat, and augments their numbers with the four unhappy mortals, to whose memory a stone stands in the kirkyard, with a sinking ship and a shoreless sea cut upon it.
"But in all that I saw I found no place more favourable than a little spot to which barques and shallops can easily ascend with the help of a strong wind, or by taking a winding course, in consequence of the strong current.
But common prudence not allowing them to hazard the whole company by too much solicitude for a single life, they travelled on towards Rio Francisco, at which they arrived, April the 3rd; but, looking out for their pinnaces, were surprised with the sight of seven Spanish shallops, and immediately concluded, that some intelligence of their motions had been carried to Nombre de Dios, and that these vessels had been fitted out to pursue them, which might, undoubtedly, have overpowered the pinnaces and their feeble crew.
And no sooner have we all bathed than we board the two shallops and push off gaily, and go gliding under the trees and gathering a great treasure of water-lilies.
On the next night the attention of the excellent journalist was otherwise engaged. Vaudreuil tried again to burn the English fleet. "Late last night," writes Knox, under date of the twenty-eighth, "the enemy sent down a most formidable fireraft, which consisted of a parcel of schooners, shallops, and stages chained together.
The lesser creeks or rivers, yet convenient for sloops and ketches of good burthen, are Lewis, Mespillion, Cedar, Dover, Cranbrook, Feversham, and Georges below; and Chichester, Chester, Toacawny, Pammapecka, Portquessin, Neshimenck, and Pennberry in the freshes: many lesser, that admit boats and shallops.
Notwithstanding in farther examination of this old mariner, having understood, that there was, within the next point, a great ship of Seville, which had here discharged her loading, and rid now with her yards across, being bound the next morning for Santo Domingo: our Captain took this old man into his pinnace to verify that which he had informed, and rowed towards this ship, which as we came near it, hailed us, asking, "Whence our shallops were?"
Occasionally the projecting out-riggers of their slight shallops running foul of one another, would become entangled beneath the water, threatening to capsize the canoes, when a scene of confusion would ensue that baffles description. Such strange outcries and passionate gesticulations I never certainly heard or saw before.
The 20 all our men came aboord, except the two prisoners: and the same day we tooke with our boats three of the Spanyards shallops, with fiue hogsheads of traine oile in ech of them, and in one boat foure Spanyards; but the men of the other two shallops fled on shore.
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