 | XXV.
ON CLIPPER SHIPS. The Squibob papers |  |
25. XXV.
ON CLIPPER SHIPS.
I send this by special current express, calculating
that it will drift along a few days ahead of us;
and you can have it all ready to put in, while we
are within the usual “two hours” sail of the port
for twenty-four days. Don't forget also to mention
the fog, loss of sails, heavy weather, etc., and
particularly “the light and baffling head-winds for
a couple of months.” But you can regulate that
by the length of our voyage. No matter if you
do make a little error of ten or fifteen days in our
favor, in reporting us. If not noticed, we won't
correct it; but if it is, then pitch into the compositors,
and call it a typographical error.
She is one hundred and fifty tons register, and
carries two thousand, as measured in Boston, with
(the thumb) being much swollen and tied up in a
rag, may have made a few feet difference in the
measurements; but that don't amount to much.
Her extreme length on deck is five hundred and
ninety-seven and a half feet; eight feet breadth of
beam; two hundred feet deep; twenty-four feet
between decks. Her bow is a great rake, and the
head is composed of a female carved figure, with
one thumb resting on the extreme tip of her nose,
fingers extended in the act of gyrating; the first
finger of the left hand in the act of drawing down
the lower lid of the eye; which the captain explains
to us as a simile from the Heathen Mythology,
denoting curiosity on the part of the figure,
to ascertain if any body discovers any thing verdant.
The “Highfalutin” is finished with the patent
“Snogrosticars,” indicating the millenium when
it comes. She is rigged after the recent invention
of Captain Blowhard, which consists of three
topsail-yards on the bowsprit, the halyards leading
the stern windows, and belay to the captain's tobacco-box.
She has also the “skyfungarorum,”
a sail something like a kite, which is set in light
weather about seventy-five feet above the main-truck,
and made fast by a running double hitch
under the binnacle and aft through the galley,
and belayed to the cook's tea-pot. It is sometimes
(when the captain carries his family) made fast to
the baby-jumper. Her windlass is rose-wood, inlaid
with clam shells. She has also a French roll
capstan with musical bars. The caboose is elaborately
carved with gilt edges, a Pike county galley-sliding
telescopic stove-pipe, of gutta-percha,
and a machine for making molasses candy for the
sailors.
| XXV.
ON CLIPPER SHIPS. The Squibob papers | |