This, Added To Guernsey Frocks, Striped Comforters About The
Neck, Thick Cowhide Boots, Woollen Caps, And A Strong, Oily Smell,
And A Decidedly Green Look, Will Complete The Description.
Eight or
ten were on the fore-topsail yard, and as many more in the main,
furling the topsails, while eight or ten were hanging about the
forecastle, doing nothing.
This was a strange sight for a vessel
coming to anchor; so we went up to them, to see what was the matter.
One of them, a stout, hearty-looking fellow, held out his leg and
said he had the scurvy; another had cut his hand; and others had
got nearly well, but said that there were plenty aloft to furl the
sails, so they were sogering on the forecastle. There was only one
"splicer" on board, a fine-looking old tar, who was in the bunt of
the fore-topsail. He was probably the only sailor in the ship,
before the mast. The mates, of course, and the boat-steerers,
and also two or three of the crew, had been to sea before, but
only whaling voyages; and the greater part of the crew were raw
hands, just from the bush, as green as cabbages, and had not yet
got the hay-seed out of their heads. The mizen topsail hung in
the bunt-lines until everything was furled forward. Thus a crew
of thirty men were half an hour in doing what would have been
done in the Alert with eighteen hands to go aloft, in fifteen
or twenty minutes.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 313 of 618
Words from 85623 to 85883
of 170236
