portunities was displaying his acquirements by the
pleasing method of catechising another. He asked: "Do you know what
the topsail-tie is?" The rejoinder, perfectly serious, was: "Do you
mean the cross-tie?" The topsail-tie being one of the principal
"ropes" in a ship, the ignorance was really symptomatic of character;
and had not the hero of it been long dead, I would not have preserved
it, even incog. I fear it may be cited against my view of practice
cruises, as proving that systematic training is better than
picking-up; to which my reply would be that the picking-up showed
aptitude--or the reverse--if only some means could be devised of
making it tell in selection, as it assuredly did in character. But at
the beginning, despite any little previous inklings, we were all quite
green. I still recall the innocent astonishment when we anchored in
Hampton Roads, after the run down the Chesapeake, and the boatswain,
as by custom, pulled round the ship to see the yards square and
rigging taut. Semaphore signalling was not then used, as later; and
his stentorian lungs conveyed to us distinct sounds, bearing meanings
we felt could never be compassed by us. "Haul taut the main-top
bowlines!" "Haul taut the starboard fore-topgallant-sheet." "Maintop,
there! Send a hand up and square the bunt gaskets of the
topgallant-sail!" "By Jove!" said one of the admiring listeners,
"there's seamanship for you!" We all silently agreed, and I dare say
many thought we might as well give it up and go home. Such excellence
was not for us.

The subsequent process of picking-up was attended sometimes by
comical, as well as painful, incidents. Peter Simple's experiences, as
told by Marryat, were not yet quite obsolete in practice. A story ran
of one, not long before my "date," who, having been sent on two or
three bootless errands by unauthorized jesters, finally received from
a person in due authority the absurd-sounding, but legitimate, message
to have the jackasses put in the hawse-holes.[7] "Oh no," he replied,
resentfully, "I have been fooled often enough! That I will not do." I
can better vouch for another, which happened on my first practice
cruise. In a sailing-ship properly planned, the balance of the sails
is such that to steer her on her course the rudder need not be kept
more to one side than the other; the helm is then amidships. But error
of design, or circumstances, such as a faulty trim of the sails or the
ship inclining in a stro