at round,
which actually happened. Consequently we never had a fair wind, to set
a studding-sail, till we were within three or four days of Bahia. This
encouraging incident, the first of the kind since the ship went into
commission, also befell in one of my mid-watches, and an awful mess
our unuse made of it. All the gear seemed to be bent with a half-dozen
round turns; the stun'sail-yards went aloft wrong end uppermost,
dangling in the most extraordinary and wholly unmanageable attitudes;
everything had to be done over and over again, till at last the case
looked desperate. Finally the lieutenant of the watch came forward in
wrath. He was a Kentuckian, very competent, ordinarily very
good-tempered; but there was red in his hair. When he got sufficiently
near he tucked the speaking-trumpet under his arm, where it looked
uncommonly like a fat cotton umbrella, himself suggesting a farmer
inspecting an intended purchase, and in this posture delivered to us a
stump speech on our shortcomings. This, I fear, I will have to leave
to the reader's imagination. It would require innumerable dashes, and
even so the emphasis would be lost. My relief had cause to be pleased
that those stun'sails were set by four o'clock, when he came on deck.
Ours the labor, his the reward.

* * * * *

A few days more saw us in Bahia; and with our arrival on the station
began a round of duties and enjoyments which made life at twenty
pleasant enough, both in the passage and in retrospect, but which
scarcely afford material for narration. Our two chief ports, Rio de
Janeiro and Montevideo, were then remote and provincial. They have
become more accessible and modern; but at the time of my last
visit--already over thirty years ago--they had lost in local color and
particular attraction as much as they had gained in convenience and
development. Street-cars, double-ended American ferry-boats, electric
lights, and all the other things for which these stand, are doubtless
good; but they make places seem less strange and so less interesting.
But I suppose there must still be in the business streets that
pervading odor of rum and sugar which tells that you are in the
tropics; still there must be the delicious hot calm of the early
morning, before the sea-breeze sets in, the fruit-laden boats plying
over the still waters to the ships of war; still that brilliant access
of life and animation which comes sparkling in with the sea