felt that the word
should be uttered in a whisper, out of respect for their feelings. But
the whole equipment of the ship, though up to date in itself, was so
far of the past that I recall it with mingled pathos and interest.
What naval officer who may read these words was ever shipmate with
rope "trusses" for the lower yards, or with a hemp messenger? A
"messenger" was a huge rope, of I suppose eighteen to twenty-four
inches circumference, used for lifting the anchor. At the after end of
the ship it was passed three times round the capstan, where the men
walking round merrily to the sound of the fife, under the eyes of the
officer of the deck, were doing the work of weighing; at the forward
end it moved round rollers to save friction. Thus one part was taut
under the strain of the capstan; and to this the cable of the anchor,
as it was hove in, was made fast by a succession of selvagees, for
which I will borrow the elaborate description of White Jacket, who
tells us the name was applied by the seamen of his ship to one of the
lieutenants: "It is a slender, tapering, unstranded piece of rope,
prepared with much solicitude; peculiarly flexible; which wreathes and
serpentines round the cable and messenger like an elegantly modelled
garter-snake round the stalks of a vine." The messenger thus was
appropriately named; it went back and forth on its errand of anchor
raising, the slack side being helped on its way by a row of twelve or
fifteen men seated, pulling it along forward. This gang, by immemorial
usage, was composed of the colored servants, and I can see now that
row of black faces, with grinning ivories, as they yo-ho'd in
undertones together, "lighting forward the messenger."

Like the ship and her equipment, the officers and crew by training and
methods were still of the olden time in tone and ideals; a condition,
of course, fostered at the moment by the style of vessel. Yet they had
that curious adaptability characteristic of the profession, which
afterwards enabled them to fall readily into the use of the new
constructions of every kind evolved by the War of Secession.
Concerning some of these, a naval professional humorist observed that
they could be worshipped without idolatry; for they were like nothing
in heaven, or on earth, or in the waters under the earth. Adored or
not, they were handled to purpose. By a paradoxical combination, the
seaman of those days was at once most conservative in temperament and
ve