We Congratulated One Another Upon Finding What We Had
Long Talked Over And Wished For, Thus Brought About; And None On
Board The Ship Were More Glad Than Ourselves To See The Old Brig
Standing Round The Point, Under Full Sail.
As she passed abreast
of us, we all collected in the waist, and gave her three loud,
hearty cheers, waving our hats in the air.
Her crew sprang
into the rigging and chains, answered us with three as loud,
to which we, after the nautical custom, gave one in return.
I took my last look of their familiar faces as they got over the
rail, and saw the old black cook put his head out of the galley,
and wave his cap over his head. The crew flew aloft to loose the
top-gallant sails and royals; the two captains waved their hands
to one another; and, in ten minutes, we saw the last inch of her
white canvas, as she rounded the point.
Relieved as I was to see her well off, (and I felt like one who had
just sprung from an iron trap which was closing upon him) I had yet a
feeling of regret at taking the last look at the old craft in which I
had spent a year, and the first year, of my sailor's life - which had
been my first home in the new world into which I had entered - and
with which I had associated so many things, - my first leaving home,
my first crossing the equator, Cape Horn, Juan Fernandez, death at
sea, and other things, serious and common.
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