158 NIMROD OF THE SEA; OR, 



skill of the million men who have risked life and limb in 

 service could make it. This paragon of a boat is twenty- 

 eight feet long, sharp and clean cut as a dolphin, bow and 

 stern swelling amidships to six feet, with a bottom round 

 and buoyant. The gunwale amidships, twenty-two inches 

 above the keel, rises with an accelerated curve to thirty- 

 seven inches at each end, and this rise of bow and stern, 

 with the clipper-like upper form, gives it a duck-like ca- 

 pacity to top the oncoming waves, so that it will dryly ride 

 when ordinary boats would fill. The gunwales and keel, 

 of the best timber, are her heaviest parts, and give stiffness 

 to the whole ; the timbers, sprung to shape, are a half-inch 

 or three-quarters in depth, and the planking is half -inch 

 white cedar. Her thwarts are inch pine, supported by knees 

 of greater strength than the other timbers. The bow-oar 

 thwart is pierced by a three-inch hole for the mast, and is 

 double-kneed. Through the cuddy-board projects a silk hat- 

 shaped loggerhead, for snubbing and managing the running 

 line ; the stem of the boat is deeply grooved on top, the bot- 

 tom of the groove being bushed with a block of lead, or 

 sometimes a bronze roller, and over this the line passes from 

 the boat. Four feet of the length of the bow is covered in 

 by a depressed box, in which the spare line, attached to har- 

 poons, lies in carefully adjusted coils. Immediately back, 

 of the box is a thick pine plank, in which the " clumsy elect," 

 or knee-brace, is cut. The gunwale is pierced at proper dis- 

 tances for thole-pins, of wood, and all sound of the work- 

 ing oars are muffled by well-thrummed mats, kept carefully 

 greased, so that we can steal on our prey silent as the cav- 

 alry of the poor badgered Lear. The planking is carefully 

 smoothed with sand-paper, and painted. Here we have a 

 boat which two men may lift, and which will make ten miles 

 an hour in dead chase by the oars alone. 



The equipment of the boat consists of a line-tub, in which 



