For Seven Days,
Our Lower And Topmast Studding-Sails Were Set All The Time, And Our
Royals And Top-Gallant Studding-Sails, Whenever She Could Stagger
Under Them.
Indeed, the captain had shown, from the moment we got
to sea, that he was to have no boy's play, but that the ship had
got to carry all she could, and that he was going to make up, by
"cracking on" to her, what she wanted in lightness.
In this way,
we frequently made three degrees of latitude, besides something
in longitude, in the course of twenty-four hours. - Our days were
spent in the usual ship's work. The rigging which had become slack
from being long in port was to be set up; breast backstays got up;
studding-sail booms rigged upon the main yard; and the royal studding-
sails got ready for the light trades; ring-tail set; and new rigging
fitted and sails got ready for Cape Horn. For, with a ship's gear,
as well as a sailor's wardrobe, fine weather must be improved to
get ready for the bad to come. Our forenoon watch below, as I
have said, was given to our own work, and our night watches were
spent in the usual manner: - a trick at the wheel, a look-out on
the forecastle, a nap on a coil of rigging under the lee of the
rail; a yarn round the windlass-end; or, as was generally my way,
a solitary walk fore and aft, in the weather waist, between the
windlass-end and the main tack.
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