greater, more than eleven thousand gross, and her rig
is entirely different. A full-rigged clipper ship might have
twenty-two square sails, though it was rare to see so many. In
addition she would have studding-sails to wing her square sails farther
out. Then, there were the triangular jibs forward and the triangular
staysails between the masts, with the quadrangular spanker like an
aerial rudder on the lower mizzenmast. All the nine staysails would
have the loose lower corner made fast to a handy place on deck by a
sheet {106} (or rope) and the fore and aft points connected by the
stays to the masts, the fore point low and the aft high. This is not
the nautical way of saying it. But 'points' and 'corners' and other
homely land terms sometimes save many explanations which, in their
turn, lead on to other explanations.

The heads of square sails are made fast to yards, which are at right
angles to the masts on which they pivot. Sails and yards are raised,
lowered, swung at the proper angle to catch the wind, and held in place
by halliards, lifts, braces, and sheets, which can be worked from the
deck. Sheets are ropes running from the lower corners of sails. All
upper sails have their sheets running through sheave-holes in the
yardarms next below, then through quarter-blocks underneath these yards
and beside the masts, and then down to the deck. Braces are the ropes
which swing the yards to the proper angle. Halliards are those which
hoist or lower both the yards and sails. The square sails themselves
are controlled by drawlines called clew-garnets running up from the
lower corners, leechlines running in diagonally from the middle of the
outside edges, buntlines running up from the foot, and spilling lines,
to spill the wind in heavy {107} weather. When the area of a sail has
to be reduced, it is reefed by gathering up the head, if a square sail,
or the foot, if triangular, and tying the gathered-up part securely by
reef points, that is, by crossing and knotting the short lines on
either side of this part. The square sails on the mainmast are called,
when eight are carried, the mainsail, lower and upper maintopsails,
lower and upper maintopgallants, main-royal, main-skysail, and the
moonsail. The standing rigging is the whole assemblage of ropes by
which the masts are supported.

These few words are very far from being a technically full, or even
quite precise, description. But, taken with what was previ