When She Sails From Port, Her Rigging Is Generally
Slack; The Masts Need Staying; The Decks And Sides Are Black And
Dirty From Taking In Cargo; Riggers' Seizings And Overhand Knots
In Place Of Nice Seamanlike Work; And Everything, To A Sailor's
Eye, Adrift.
But on the passage home, the fine weather between the tropics is
spent in putting the ship into the neatest order.
No merchant vessel
looks better than an Indiaman, or a Cape Horn-er, after a long voyage;
and many captains and mates will stake their reputation for seamanship
upon the appearance of their ship when she hauls into the dock.
All our standing rigging, fore and aft, was set up and tarred;
the masts stayed; the lower and top-mast rigging rattled down,
(or up, as the fashion now is;) and so careful were our officers
to keep the rattlins taught and straight, that we were obliged
to go aloft upon the ropes and shearpoles with which the rigging
was swifted in; and these were used as jury rattlins until we got
close upon the coast. After this, the ship was scraped, inside and
out, decks, masts, booms and all; a stage being rigged outside,
upon which we scraped her down to the water-line; pounding the
rust off the chains, bolts and fastenings. Then, taking two days
of calm under the line, we painted her on the outside, giving her
open ports in her streak, and finishing off the nice work upon the
stern, where sat Neptune in his car, holding his trident, drawn
by sea-horses; and re-touched the gilding and coloring of the
cornucopia which ornamented her billet-head.
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