The very yo-ho-ing of the sailors at the
ropes sounded sociably upon the ear. She was an old, damaged-looking
craft, with a high poop and top-gallant forecastle, and sawed off
square, stem and stern, like a true English "tea-wagon," and with a
run like a sugar-box. She had studding-sails out alow and aloft,
with a light but steady breeze, and her captain said he could not
get more than four knots out of her and thought he should have a
long passage. We were going six on an easy bowline.
The next day, about three P. M., passed a large corvette-built ship,
close upon the wind, with royals and skysails set fore and aft,
under English colors. She was standing south-by-east, probably bound
round Cape Horn. She had men in her tops, and black mast-heads;
heavily sparred, with sails cut to a t, and other marks of a man-of
war. She sailed well, and presented a fine appearance; the proud,
aristocratic-looking banner of St. George, the cross in a blood-red
field, waving from the mizen. We probably were as fine a sight, with
our studding-sails spread far out beyond the ship on either side,
and rising in a pyramid to royal studding-sails and sky-sails, burying
the hull in canvas, and looking like what the whale-men on the Banks
under their stump top-gallant masts, call "a Cape Horner under a cloud
of sail.
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