omewhat fanciful, and its
rig, as Captain Collies observes, "is that of a ship a century later than
the MAY-FLOWER; a square topsail on the mizzen," he notes, "being unknown
in the early part of the seventeenth century, and a jib on a ship equally
rare." Halsall's picture of "The Arrival of the MAY-FLOWER in Plymouth
Harbor," owned by the Pilgrim Society, of Plymouth, and hung in the
Society's Hall, while presenting several historical inaccuracies,
undoubtedly more correctly portrays the ship herself, in model, rig,
etc., than do most of the well-known paintings which represent her.
It is much to be regretted that the artist, in woeful ignorance, or
disregard, of the recorded fact that the ship was not troubled with
either ice or snow on her entrance (at her successful second attempt) to
Plymouth harbor, should have covered and environed her with both.

Answering, as the MAY-FLOWER doubtless did, to her type, she was
certainly of rather "blocky," though not unshapely, build, with high poop
and forecastle, broad of beam, short in the waist, low "between decks,"
and modelled far more upon the lines of the great nautical prototype, the
water-fowl, than the requirements of speed have permitted in the carrying
trade of more recent years. That she was of the "square rig" of her
time--when apparently no use was made of the "fore-and-aft" sails which
have so wholly banished the former from all vessels of her size--goes
without saying. She was too large for the lateen rig, so prevalent in
the Mediterranean, except upon her mizzenmast, where it was no doubt
employed.

The chief differences which appear in the several "counterfeit
presentments" of the historic ship are in the number of her masts and
the height of her poop and her forecastle. A few make her a brig or
"snow" of the oldest pattern, while others depict her as a full-rigged
ship, sometimes having the auxiliary rig of a small "jigger" or
"dandy-mast," with square or lateen sail, on peak of stern, or on the
bow sprit, or both, though usually her mizzenmast is set well aft upon
the poop. There is no reason for thinking that the former of these
auxiliaries existed upon the MAY-FLOWER, though quite possible. Her 180
tons measurement indicates, by the general rule of the nautical
construction of that period, a length of from 90 to 100 feet, "from
taffrail to knighthead," with about 24 feet beam, and with such a hull
as this, three masts would be far more likely than two