Some of these accounts say they contained three hundred men; others seem to state that the number which arrived at the first landing was three thousand.

This, however, would seem impossible, as no three vessels built in those days could convey so large a number.
We must suppose, therefore, that that number is meant to include those who came at several of the earlier expeditions, and which were grouped by the historian together, or else that several other vessels or transports accompanied the three, which history has specially commemorated as the first arriving.
In fact, very little can now be known in respect to the form and capacity of the vessels in which these half-barbarous navigators roamed, in those days, over the British seas.

Their name, indeed, has come down to us, and that is nearly all.

They were called _cyules_; though the name is sometimes spelled, in the ancient chronicles, _ceols_, and in other ways.

They were obviously vessels of considerable capacity and were of such construction and such strength as to stand the roughest marine exposures.