One night, while we were in these tropics, I went out to the end of the flying-jib-boom upon some duty, and, having finished it, turned round, and lay over the boom for a long time, admiring the beauty of the sight before me.  Being so far out from the deck, I could look at the ship as at a separate vessel; and there rose up from the water, supported only by the small black hull, a pyramid of canvas, spreading out far beyond the hull, and towering up almost, as it seemed in the indistinct night air, to the clouds.  The sea was as still as an inland lake; the light trade-wind was gently and steadily breathing from astern; the dark blue sky was studded with the tropical stars; there was no sound but the rippling of the water under the stem; and the sails were spread out, wide and high,—­ the two lower studding-sails stretching on each side far beyond the deck; the topmast studding-sails like wings to the topsails; the top-gallant studding-sails spreading fearlessly out above them; still higher, the two royal studding-sails, looking like two kites flying from the same string; and, highest of all, the little skysail, the apex of the pyramid, seeming actually to touch the stars, and to be out of reach of human hand.  So quiet, too, was the sea, and so steady the breeze, that if these sails had been sculptured marble they could not have been more motionless.  Not a ripple upon the surface of the canvas; not even a quivering of the extreme edges of the sail, so perfectly were they distended by the breeze.  I was so lost in the sight that I forgot the presence of the man who came out with me, until he said (for he, too, rough old man-of-war’s-man as he was, had been gazing at the show), half to himself, still looking at the marble sails,—­ ``How quietly they do their work!’’

The fine weather brought work with it, as the ship was to be put in order for coming into port.  To give a landsman some notion of what is done on board ship, it may be truly said that all the first part of a passage is spent in getting a ship ready for sea, and the last part in getting her ready for port.  She is, as sailors say, like a lady’s watch, always out of repair.  The new, strong sails, which we had up off Cape Horn, were to be sent down, and the old set, which were still serviceable in fine weather, to be bent in their place; all the rigging to be set up, fore and aft; the masts stayed; the standing rigging to be tarred down; lower and topmast rigging to be rattled down, fore and aft; the ship scraped inside and out, and painted; decks varnished; new and neat knots, seizings and coverings, to be fitted; and every part put in order, to look well to the owner’s eye, and to all critics, on coming into Boston.  This, of course, was a long matter; and all hands were kept on deck at work for the whole of each day, during the rest of the voyage.  Sailors call this hard usage; but the ship must be in crack order; and ``We’re homeward bound’’ was the answer to everything.