outside my knowledge) and manned. All other gear
being coiled out of the way, on the pins, there was nothing to confuse
or entangle; the fore topsail was swung round on the opposite tack
from the main, a-box, to pay the ship's head off and leave her side to
the wind, steadied by the close-reefed fore and main topsails, which
would then be filled. She was now, of course, going astern fast; but
this mattered nothing, for the sea had not yet got up. The evolution,
common enough itself, an almost invariable accompaniment of getting
under way, was now exciting even to grandeur, for we could see only
when the benevolent lightning kindled in the sky a momentary glare of
noonday. "Now that's a clever old man," said the boatswain's mate next
day to me, approvingly, of the captain; "boxing her off that way, with
all that wind and blackness, was handsomely done." After this we
settled down to a two days' pampero, with a huge but regular sea.

Whether the _Congress's_ helm on this interesting occasion was shifted
for sternboard I never inquired. Marryat tells us it was a moot point
in his young days. Our captain was an excellent seaman, but had
'doxies of his own. Of these, one which ran contrary to current
standards was in favor of clewing up a course or topsail to leeward,
in blowing weather. Among the lieutenants was a strong champion of the
opposite and accepted dogma, and a messmate of mine, in his division
and shining by reflected light, was always prompt to enforce closure
of debate by declaiming:

"He who seeks the tempest to disarm
Will never first embrail the lee yard-arm."

Whether Falconer, besides being a poet, was also an expert in
seamanship, or whether he simply registered the views of his day, may
be questioned. The two alternatives, I fancy, were the chance of
splitting the sail, and that of springing the yard; and any one who
has ever watched a big bag of wind whipping a weather yard-arm up and
down in its bellying struggles, after clewing up to windward, will
have experienced as eager a desire to call it down as he has ever felt
to suppress its congener in an after-dinner oration. Both are much out
of place and time.

Days of the past! Certainly a watch spent reefing topsails in the rain
was less tedious than that everlasting bridge of to-day: Tramp! Tramp!
or stand still, facing the wind blowing the teeth down your throat.
Nothing to do requiring effort; the engine does all that; but still a
perpet