The instant she showed her nose round the point, we
began our salute. She came in under top-gallant sails, clawed up and
furled her sails in good order, and came-to, within good swinging
distance of us. It being Sunday, and nothing to do, all hands were
on the forecastle, criticising the new-comer. She was a good,
substantial ship, not quite so long as the Alert, and wall-sided and
kettle-bottomed, after the latest fashion of south-shore cotton and
sugar wagons; strong, too, and tight, and a good average sailor, but
with no pretensions to beauty, and nothing in the style of a "crack
ship." Upon the whole, we were perfectly satisfied that the Alert
might hold up her head with a ship twice as smart as she.
At night, some of us got a boat and went on board, and found a
large, roomy forecastle, (for she was squarer forward than the Alert,)
and a crew of a dozen or fifteen men and boys, sitting around on their
chests, smoking and talking, and ready to give a welcome to any of our
ship's company. It was just seven months since they left Boston, which
seemed but yesterday to us. Accordingly, we had much to ask, for
though we had seen the newspapers that she brought, yet these were the
very men who had been in Boston and seen everything with their own
eyes.
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