Each galley required one hundred and sixty rowers, and altogether carried about three hundred men. They suffered great inconvenience, and encountered many dangers. The Senate made the most exact rules concerning their wages, food, the parts of the vessel to which they should have access, when and where they should go on shore, and many other details. The ship of the chief captain carried a master, a nautical adviser, eight pilots, a mate, two scribes, two doctors, a priest, a lawyer, an oarmaker, carpenter, calker and weigher, a cook, a cellarman, three servants, two fifers, and two trumpeters, besides thirty bowmen in charge of four young noblemen. The duties and salaries of each and all these men were fixed {251} by the Senate, as well as the method of loading and unloading the ships. As we think of all this tediousness for everybody concerned in Venetian commerce in the Middle Ages, from the Doge down to the humblest servitor of them all, the commerce of the present day, with our labor-saving machinery, our swift sailing-vessels, and space-annihilating steam-engines, seems insignificant in a way. John B. Marsh, in his "Stories of Venice and the Venetians," gives an account of the experiences of a merchant fleet, which has a special interest, as Christopher Columbus acted a prominent part in the story, which Mr. Marsh claims is authenticated in the state papers. It is essentially as follows:-- On April 12, 1485, Bartolommeo Minio was appointed captain of four galleys to make the Flanders voyage. They had been bidden in by some merchants who had goods suited to the northern markets at £220 per galley. The great galleys were loaded. The prows were fenced to afford footing to the crossbowmen. All the different officers and men were selected and bound to complete the voyage. The cargo of glass, jewels, gold, silver, furs, silks, and damasks, bales of spices, dried fruits, and Malmsey wine was all on board, and an official from the Arsenal approved of all the preparations. Then Minio, the commander, in presence of the whole Senate and the captains who were to sail with him, took an oath upon the Bible that he would obey the regulations of the Senate regarding the galleys and the people on board, and would care for them all in good faith. The preparations being thus completed, to the sound of trumpets the rowers began their labor, and the galleys moved from the canal into the Gulf of Venice.