always he who is called to account for it. He has
certainly proved himself a true friend to us, and henceforward I will
never sit down tamely and hear him vilified. And as to yourself, my
dear fellow, make your mind easy; you are a far better navigator than
you think yourself, and what little help you may need to render you
perfect I will cheerfully give you; a week's hard study on your part
will be quite sufficient to qualify you for going anywhere."

As we rapidly approached the wharf, the noble proportions of the
_Dolphin_ became every moment more apparent, and when at length the gig
dashed alongside and I passed in through the wide gangway I felt as
though I had a frigate under me. She measured one hundred and twenty
feet in length between perpendiculars, and was thirty feet beam at her
widest part, which dimensions gave her a measurement of close upon five
hundred tons. Her hull was, however, exceedingly shallow, her draught
of water being only nine feet when in her usual sailing trim; her lines
were, moreover, without any exception the finest and most beautiful I
ever saw; so that, though, in consequence of the curious manner in which
tonnage was at that time calculated, she was an extraordinarily large
vessel of her class, I do not believe she would have carried a cargo of
more than four hundred tons of dead weight. This, however, was all in
her favour, so far as speed was concerned, as it gave her large and
beamy hull a very small displacement, whilst her long flat floor
rendered her exceedingly stiff; this latter quality being peculiarly
apparent from the fact that, though on this occasion she had an empty
hold--her iron ballast having been all removed and stacked upon the
wharf--she scarcely deigned to heel at all to the sea-breeze, though it
was blowing half a gale at the time, whilst her spars were all ataunto
just as she had come in from sea. She was a truly noble craft, her
model was superb, and I fell in love with her on the spot--no sailor
could have helped doing so. She had been taken under French colours,
but my own opinion, which was supported by that of others who were far
better judges than myself, was that she was American built. There was
an easy graceful spring in her long spacious deck which no Frenchman
could ever have compassed, and there was an American look too about her
bows, which raked forward in an exquisite curve, whilst they flared
outward in a way which promised to make her won