d ever
seen. My admiration of her was unbounded; and on the day of her
launch--upon which occasion I cheered myself hoarse--I felt, as I saw
her gliding swiftly and gracefully down the ways, that it would be a
priceless privilege to sail in her, even in the capacity of the meanest
ship-boy. And now I was to be a midshipman on board her! I hurried
onward with swift and impatient steps, and soon passed through the
dockyard gates--having long ago, by dint of persistent coaxing, gained
the _entree_ to the sacred precincts--when a walk of some four or five
hundred yards further took me to the berth alongside the wharf where she
was lying.

Well as I knew every curve and line of her beautiful hull, my glances
now dwelt upon her with tenfold loving interest. She was a ship-sloop
of 28 guns--long 18-pounders--with a flush deck fore and aft. She was
very long in proportion to her beam; low in the water, and her lines
were as fine as it had been possible to make them. She had a very
light, elegant-looking stern, adorned with a great deal of carved
scroll-work about the cabin windows; and her gracefully-curved cut-water
was surmounted by an exquisitely-carved full-length figure of Peneus'
lovely daughter, with both arms outstretched, as in the act of flight,
and with twigs and leaves of laurel just springing from her dainty
finger-tips. There was a great deal of brass-work about the deck
fittings, which gleamed and flashed brilliantly in the sun; and, the
paint being new and fresh, she looked altogether superlatively neat, in
spite of the fact that the operations of rigging and of shipping stores
were both going on simultaneously.

Having satisfied for the time being my curiosity with regard to the hull
of my future home, I next cast a glance aloft at her spars. She was
rigged only as far as her topmast-heads, her topgallant-masts being then
on deck in process of preparation for sending aloft. When I had last
seen her she was under the masting-shears getting her lower-masts
stepped; and it then struck me that they were fitting her with rather
heavy spars. But now, as I looked aloft, I was fairly startled at the
length and girth of her masts and yards. To my eye--by no means an
unaccustomed one--her spars seemed taunt enough for a ship of nearly
double her size; and the rigging was heavy in the same proportion. I
stood there on the wharf watching with the keenest interest the scene of
bustle and animation on board unt