Then began some wonderful days of sea history and naval schooling. The Spanish vessels were floating castles armed with heavy guns and crowded with soldiers armed with muskets and “harquebuses of crock,”—that is, great blunderbusses supported upon a portable rest. They kept in a close crowd, like a phalanx of old Swiss infantry, and supposed that the English would move against them in another dense raft, and that they would fight from deck to deck of grappled ships as if they were on land. But the English knew better. They had few ships as large—the _Triumph_, 1100 tons, was the biggest—or guns as heavy as the Spaniards’. Instead of attacking in a solid mass, therefore, they spread out, hovered on the flanks, darted a ship here and there, fired as they saw opportunity, and kept their own vessels out of danger as much as possible. In the light and variable winds that prevailed, the great galleons of the Armada were almost immovable, while the English for the most part had smaller, lighter vessels, whose nimbleness and ready obedience to the helm astonished the Spanish. Standing low in the water, these would drive their shot right through the enemy’s hulls, and make off before the Spaniard could depress his guns enough to do any damage in return; while the army of musketeers upon whom he had relied so strongly had little chance to do anything at all. Thus for a week the English frigates and armed fishing-boats harassed the Armada on its way up the Channel, capturing and sinking many of the ships, while losing some of its own, of course, until at last the worried and baffled squadron managed to gain the roadstead of Calais, where the army of the Duke of Parma lay. To carry this army across and begin a campaign against London seemed now not only out of the question, but the safety of the fleet itself was a question; for a few days later, when a favorable wind arose, several fire-ships came sailing down upon them from the blockading Englishmen outside. These fire-ships—an important part of every fleet for two or three centuries—were old vessels intended to set fire to an enemy’s ships. Their yard-arms were set with great iron hooks, their hulls and riggings were saturated with oil, their decks loaded with tar-barrels, and their old guns overloaded, so as to spread destruction in every direction by bursting. Then bold crews sailed these grappling monsters as near the enemy as they dared,—and it must have been a service dear to the heart of the daring,—set fire to them, lashed their helms, and got away in their boats as best they could.