"
But so far from that, unless a ship meets with some accident, or comes
upon the coast in the dead of winter, when work cannot be done upon
the rigging, she is in her finest order at the end of the voyage. When
she sails from port, her rigging is generally slack; the masts need
staying; the decks and sides are black and dirty from taking in cargo;
riggers' seizings and overhand knots in place of nice seamanlike work;
and everything, to a sailor's eye, adrift. But on the passage home,
the fine weather between the tropics is spent in putting the ship into
the neatest order. No merchant vessel looks better than an Indiaman,
or a Cape Horner, after a long voyage; and many captains and mates
will stake their reputation for seamanship upon the appearance of
their ship when she hauls into the dock. All our standing rigging,
fore and aft, was set up and tarred; the masts stayed; the lower and
top-mast rigging rattled down, (or up, as the fashion now is;) and
so careful were our officers to keep the rattlins taught and straight,
that we were obliged to go aloft upon the ropes and shearpoles with
which the rigging was swifted in; and these were used as jury rattlins
until we got close upon the coast.
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