alongside the _Mercury_ and mounted to
her deck it was getting so close toward noon, that I had only barely
time enough to get my traps out of the boat before the moment arrived
when I must get to work with my sextant to secure the sun's meridian
altitude, from which to deduce the ship's latitude. Then there was an
even more important job to be done, namely, to start and set the
chronometer; therefore, as soon as I had secured my meridian altitude
and made it noon aboard the _Mercury_, we wore ship, and coming up
alongside the _Salamis_--that lay patiently waiting for us with her main
topsail aback--obtained the correct Greenwich time and set our
chronometer to it. This done, Captain Martin swung his mainyard and
made sail, and we followed suit as quickly as we could. Then I worked
out my observations, pricked off the ship's position on the chart, wrote
up the log, and took possession of the late captain's stateroom, by
which time dinner was on the cabin table, and I sat down to my first
meal on board the _Mercury_. The food, of course, was not quite so
luxurious as that served up on the cuddy tables aboard the _Salamis_,
but it was a long way better than what I had been accustomed to get in
the apprentices' berth, and I appreciated the change accordingly.

At the conclusion of the meal, at which Polson joined me, uninvited,
while the carpenter stumped the poop as officer of the watch, I went on
deck to have a good look at my first command; and, on the whole, was
very pleased with her. She was a big ship for her tonnage, having
evidently been constructed with an eye to ample cargo stowage rather
than speed; consequently she was inclined to be bluff in the bows and
full in the run; yet when I looked ahead and saw that the _Salamis_ had
only drawn ahead of us by about a mile during the half-hour or so that I
had been below, I was by no means dissatisfied. She was evidently an
elderly ship, for everything about her in the way of fittings and
equipment was old-fashioned; but she was as strong as oak and iron could
make her, her scantling being nearly twice as heavy as that of the
_Salamis_. Her bulwarks were almost as high and solid as those of a
frigate, and she was pierced to mount seven guns of a side, but no
longer carried any artillery on her decks excepting two brass six-
pounders for the purpose of signalling. She was very loftily and
solidly rigged, and it did not take me long to ascertain that she had
been