boys the topgallant sails, and all
the crew, except the master, the larger square sails. The yards were
squared by the braces. The lower yards were made to correspond with the
topsail yards by means of the lifts, every rope was hauled taut, and
every coil round the belaying pin was made strictly uniform. Every end
of a rope had to have what is called a cross-whipping to prevent the
end from becoming a tassel. A well-worn, though authentic story, which
bears on this, did service many times in those days of nautical
rectitude. A gentleman was brought from another district to our little
port to serve as chief mate aboard a hitherto well-kept brig, and his
chief characteristic was in neglecting to conform to one of the great
essential nautical principles by allowing everything to get into
disorder; warps and rope ends were allowed to go without whippings
until it became an eyesore and a subject of strong condemnation. His
wife, who did not conform to the orthodox faith, began to draw
comparisons, and vigorously proclaimed that her husband's taste was a
thing to be emulated. "Look," said this incensed lady, "at the fringes
and tassels. Do they not look better than having things tied up like
whipcords?" But her aesthetic opinions did not prevent her husband's
services being dispensed with.

I have said that some of these small vessels were in the St Lawrence
trade carrying timber from Quebec, and grain or timber from Montreal.
They usually went out in ballast in order to make two voyages during
the season, and there were very few that did not succeed in doing it,
provided they kept free from accident. The spring voyage was fraught
with great danger owing to large fields of ice and icebergs drifting
out of the St Lawrence across the Banks of Newfoundland. Sometimes the
spring fleet would be fast for days, and many of them got badly damaged
in the effort to force a channel through the ice-field, while some got
so badly crushed and damaged that they foundered. That was a real
danger at the beginning of the season, but it did not compare with the
danger of encountering the terrific westerly hurricanes that swept over
the Atlantic in the fall of the year. We speak sympathetically about
the six and seven thousand ton steamers that tramp across during the
winter months at the present time, and yet it is less than fifty years
since the whole of that trade was done by tiny brigs and barques who
leaked and worked like Russian prams, bu