handle the sails and yards of a ship with perfect ease, from their superior mechanical knowledge, at times when the oldest sailors on board were puzzled how to get things right.  One officer, for instance, may direct the preparations for shortening sail to be made according to the most orthodox rules laid down in Hamilton Moor’s “Examination of a Young Sea Officer,” and yet when he comes to give the fatal word, “Lower away! haul down!” everything shall go wrong.  The tack being eased off too soon, the spar breaks in the middle, and the poor topmast studding-sail is spitted like a lark on the broken stump of the boom, while the lower studding-sail, driven furiously forward by the squall, is pierced by the spritsail yard-arm, the cat-head, and the bumpkin; or it may be wrapped round the bowsprit, like so much wet drapery in the inimitable Chantrey’s studio over the clay figure of an Indian bishop.

“What the blue blazes shall I do next?” moans the poor puzzled officer of the watch, who sees this confusion caused entirely by his own bad management.  On such an occasion, a kind and considerate captain will perhaps fairly walk below, and so leave the mortified youth to get himself out of the scrape as he best can, and rather lose a small spar, or a bolt of canvas, than expose his officer to the humiliation of having the task transferred to another; or he will edge himself near the embarrassed officer, and, without the action being detected by any one else, whisper a few magical words of instruction in the young man’s ear, by which the proper train of directions are set agoing, and the whole confusion of ropes, sails, and yards, speedily brought into order.  If this fails, the hands are called, upon which the captain himself, or more generally the first lieutenant, takes the trumpet; and the men, hearing the well-known, confident voice of skill, fly to the proper points, “monkey paw” the split sails, clear the ropes, which an instant before seemed inextricably foul, and in a very few minutes reduce the whole disaster to the dimensions of a common occurrence.  “Now, you may call the watch,” says the captain; and the reproved officer again takes charge of the deck.  I need hardly say, that any young man of spirit ought rather to wear his hands to the bone in learning his duty, than to expose himself to such mortification as this.

Let us, however, suppose all the extra sails taken in without accident, and rolled up with as much haste as may be consistent with that good order which ought never to be relaxed under any degree of urgency.  In fine weather, it is usual to place the studding-sails in the rigging, with all their gear bent, in readiness to be whipped up to the yard-arm at a moment’s warning; but when a breeze such as we are now considering is on the rise, it is thought best to unbend the tacks and haulyards, and to stow the sails in some convenient place, either on the booms, between the boats, or in the hammock-nettings.  For the same reason,