This, Of Course, Brought Us Up, And We
Had Only To "Ease Larboard Oars; Pull Round Starboard!" And Go
Aboard The Alert, With Something Very Like A Flea In The Ear.
There Was A Light Land-Breeze All Night, And The Ship Did Not Come
To Anchor Until The Next Morning.
As soon as her anchor was down,
we went aboard, and found her to be the whaleship, Wilmington and
Liverpool Packet, of New Bedford, last from the "off-shore ground,"
with nineteen hundred barrels of oil.
A "spouter" we knew her to
be as soon as we saw her, by her cranes and boats, and by her stump
top-gallant masts, and a certain slovenly look to the sails, rigging,
spars and hull; and when we got on board, we found everything to
correspond, - spouter fashion. She had a false deck, which was
rough and oily, and cut up in every direction by the chimes of
oil casks; her rigging was slack and turning white; no paint on
the spars or blocks; clumsy seizings and straps without covers,
and homeward-bound splices in every direction. Her crew, too,
were not in much better order. Her captain was a slab-sided,
shamble-legged Quaker, in a suit of brown, with a broad-brimmed
hat, and sneaking about decks, like a sheep, with his head down;
and the men looked more like fishermen and farmers than they did
like sailors.
Though it was by no means cold weather, (we having on only our red
shirts and duck trowsers,) they all had on woollen trowsers - not blue
and shipshape - but of all colors - brown, drab, grey, aye, and green,
with suspenders over their shoulders, and pockets to put their hands
in.
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