The rigging which had become slack from being long in port was
to be set up; breast backstays got up; studding-sail booms rigged upon
the main yard; and the royal studding-sails got ready for the light
trades; ring-tail set; and new rigging fitted and sails got ready
for Cape Horn. For, with a ship's gear, as well as a sailor's
wardrobe, fine weather must be improved to get ready for the bad to
come. Our forenoon watch below, as I have said, was given to our own
work, and our night watches were spent in the usual manner:- a trick
at the wheel, a look-out on the forecastle, a nap on a coil of rigging
under the lee of the rail; a yarn round the windlass-end; or, as was
generally my way, a solitary walk fore and aft, in the weather
waist, between the windlass-end and the main tack. Every wave that she
threw aside brought us nearer home, and every day's observation at
noon showed a progress which, if it continued, would in less than five
months, take us into Boston Bay. This is the pleasure of life at
sea,- fine weather, day after day, without interruption,- fair wind,
and a plenty of it,- and homeward bound.
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