The Santa Maria was, as I have told you, the largest of the three, and she was only sixty-three feet long, twenty feet wide and ten and a half feet deep.

Just measure this out on the ground and see how small, after all, the Admiral's "flag-ship" really was.

The Pinta was even smaller than this, while the little Nina was hardly anything more than a good-sized sail boat.

Do you wonder that the poor people of Palos and the towns round about were frightened when they thought of their fathers and brothers and sons putting out to sea, on the great ocean they had learned to dread so much, in such shaky little boats as these?
But finally the vessels were ready.

The crews were selected.