They were not schooner rigged, those masts. The yards
were set square across, and along them were furled royals and upper
topsails. Here, at last, was a craft worth looking at. Captain Elisha
crossed the street, hurried past the covered freight house, and saw a
magnificent great ship lying beside a broad open wharf. Down the wharf
he walked, joyfully, as one who greets an old friend.
The wharf was practically deserted. An ancient watchman was dozing in
a sort of sentry box, but he did not wake. There was a pile of
foreign-looking crates and boxes at the further end of the pier,
evidently the last bit of cargo waiting to be carted away. The captain
inspected the pile, recognized the goods as Chinese and Japanese, then
read the name on the big ship's stern. She was the Empress of the Ocean,
and her home port was Liverpool.
Captain Elisha, as a free-born Yankee skipper, had an inherited and
cherished contempt for British "lime-juicers," but he could not help
admiring this one. To begin with, her size and tonnage were enormous.
Also, she was four-masted, instead of the usual three, and her hull and
lower spars were of steel instead of wood. A steel sailing vessel was
something of a novelty to the captain, and he was seized with a desire
to go aboard and inspect.
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