are drawn up, and the eyes of the rigging
placed over the mast-heads. If there be only a few sailors on board,
these can be employed to get off the furniture, that is, all the
blocks, ready stropped in the rigging loft; and to draw the present
use stores from the dockyard. These can all be kept under lock and key
in the store-rooms of the hulk; and if the rigging, and everything
required in placing it aloft, be previously fitted and arranged by the
boatswain, so that he can put his hand at once on the gear as soon as
a sufficient number of the crew join, much time will be saved. Even
the lower rigging may be got off all ready fitted from the loft; while
the runners and tackles, the luffs, and other purchases, may be put in
preparation for use the moment there are hands enough to employ on
them.

By application to the boatswain of the yard, assistance will be given
to gammon the bowsprit, preparatory to its being clothed, which is the
technical term for rigging that important spar. One of its principal
offices is to support the foremast and fore-topmast, by means of their
stays, as the slanting ropes are called which stretch forwards and
downwards from the head of every mast, great and small, in the ship.
Some of these, as the main-stay, lie at so inconsiderable an angle
with the horizon, that they possess great power of sustaining the
mast; while others, such as the fore-stay, being necessarily more
perpendicular, do not act to such good mechanical purpose. There is a
peculiar disadvantage attending the method of securing the fore-stay,
arising from the position of the mast. It is placed so near the
extremity of the ship, that the stay, which forms its only support in
the forward direction, cannot be attached to the body of the vessel,
without making so very small an angle with the mast as would divest
it of nearly all its character as a supporter. To remedy this, the
bowsprit has been devised, chiefly as an out-rigger for the fore-stay.
But in order to render the spar effective for that purpose, it
requires to be very strongly bound down. There has, therefore, been
contrived what is called the stem, or cut-water, which is a strong but
narrow projection from the bows, securely fastened by long and thick
bolts of iron and copper to the body of the ship. The chief purpose of
this stem is to furnish a point of support for the ropes securing the
bowsprit. Of these, the most important is called the gammoning, which
consist