In
the meantime, it fell flat calm, and being within a couple of miles of
the ship, we expected to board her in a few moments, when a sudden
breeze sprung up, dead ahead for the ship, and she braced up and stood
off toward the islands, sharp on the larboard tack, making good way
through the water. This, of course, brought us up, and we had only
to "ease larboard oars; pull round starboard!" and go aboard the
Alert, with something very like a flea in the ear. There was a light
land-breeze all night, and the ship did not come to anchor until the
next morning. As soon as her anchor was down, we went aboard, and
found her to be the whaleship, Wilmington and Liverpool Packet, of New
Bedford, last from the "off-shore ground," with nineteen hundred
barrels of oil. A "spouter" we knew her to be as soon as we saw her,
by her cranes and boats, and by her stump top-gallant masts, and a
certain slovenly look to the sails, rigging, spars and hull; and
when we got on board, we found everything to correspond,-spouter
fashion. She had a false deck, which was rough and oily, and cut up in
every direction by the chimes of oil casks; her rigging was slack
and turning white; no paint on the spars or blocks; clumsy seizings
and straps without covers, and homeward-bound splices in every
direction.
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