erent line.

"You seem proud of your head, Mr. Clearpipe, I shall gild her for
you!"

In a few days, the sparkling eyes and blushing cheeks of Mrs.
Boatswain, like Danae, had yielded up their charms to the golden
shower. The glittering figure-head soon became the delight of the
ship's company, and on one occasion furnished the captain with rather
an odd means of calling out their energies. The ship was sailing in
company with several others of the same class, and when they all came
to reef topsails together, she was beat on the first occasion. As they
were setting about a second trial of activity, the captain called out
to the people aloft,--

"Now, I tell you what it is, my lads, unless you are off the yards,
and the sails are hoisted again before any other ship in the squadron,
by the Lord Harry I'll paint your figure-head black!" From that time
forward, she beat every ship in the fleet.

As soon as a sufficient number of hands are collected on board the
ship which is fitting out, all the spars, except the spare ones, may
be got off to the hulk. These consist of topsail yards, topmasts, and
top-gallant masts and yards, jib and spanker boom, studding-sail booms,
and one or two others. The lower and topsail yards can be fitted on
the hulk's decks, ready to be swayed into their places when the masts
are in a state to receive them. If a dockyard lump, or lighter, can be
got to put all the spars in, together with the tops and other things
which are usually made into a raft and floated off, it may save a
great deal of trouble; as it frequently happens that they cannot all
be got in before night, and if bad weather comes on, they may break
adrift and be lost.

There seems no fixed rule for rigging a ship progressively. Different
officers adopt different ways of setting about the operation, and
slight variations occur in the arrangement of the ropes; but,
generally speaking, everything is disposed according to the
long-established rules of seamanship. The grand object is to support
each mast laterally by a number of shrouds on each side, inclining
slightly abaft the perpendicular, to prevent its falling either
sideways or forwards, and also, by means of two stays, the principal
stay and the spring stay, both stretching in the line of the keel, to
hold it forwards. The width of the ship affords what is called a
spread for the rigging, which spread is augmented by the application
of broad shelves, called channels, carryi