{"id":"01KG8AMK3Q1A2SZJGMGAV73P1G","cid":"bafkreigubbyvd3sze5mwklzukxaotkt6urmlwxzrhvqlzfyzr43msikgci","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":11936,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:36.274Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KG89J19NC56FFGBCM2SWEZZY","start_line":11854,"text":"CHAPTER LXXIV.\r\nTHE MAIN-TOP AT NIGHT.\r\n\r\n\r\nThe whole of our run from Rio to the Line was one delightful yachting,\r\nso far as fine weather and the ship’s sailing were concerned. It was\r\nespecially pleasant when our quarter-watch lounged in the main-top,\r\ndiverting ourselves in many agreeable ways. Removed from the immediate\r\npresence of the officers, we there harmlessly enjoyed ourselves, more\r\nthan in any other part of the ship. By day, many of us were very\r\nindustrious, making hats or mending our clothes. But by night we became\r\nmore romantically inclined.\r\n\r\nOften Jack Chase, an enthusiastic admirer of sea-scenery, would direct\r\nour attention to the moonlight on the waves, by fine snatches from his\r\ncatalogue of poets. I shall never forget the lyric air with which, one\r\nmorning, at dawn of day, when all the East was flushed with red and\r\ngold, he stood leaning against the top-mast shrouds, and stretching his\r\nbold hand over the sea, exclaimed, “Here comes Aurora: top-mates, see!”\r\nAnd, in a liquid, long-lingering tone, he recited the lines,\r\n\r\n     “With gentle hand, as seeming oft to pause,\r\n      The purple curtains of the morn she draws.”\r\n\r\n\r\n“Commodore Camoens, White-Jacket.—But bear a hand there; we must rig\r\nout that stun’-sail boom—the wind is shifting.”\r\n\r\nFrom our lofty perch, of a moonlight night, the frigate itself was a\r\nglorious sight. She was going large before the wind, her stun’-sails\r\nset on both sides, so that the canvas on the main-mast and fore-mast\r\npresented the appearance of majestic, tapering pyramids, more than a\r\nhundred feet broad at the base, and terminating in the clouds with the\r\nlight copestone of the royals. That immense area of snow-white canvas\r\nsliding along the sea was indeed a magnificent spectacle. The three\r\nshrouded masts looked like the apparitions of three gigantic Turkish\r\nEmirs striding over the ocean.\r\n\r\nNor, at times, was the sound of music wanting, to augment the poetry of\r\nthe scene. The whole band would be assembled on the poop, regaling the\r\nofficers, and incidentally ourselves, with their fine old airs. To\r\nthese, some of us would occasionally dance in the _top_, which was\r\nalmost as large as an ordinary sized parlour. When the instrumental\r\nmelody of the band was not to be had, our nightingales mustered their\r\nvoices, and gave us a song.\r\n\r\nUpon these occasions Jack Chase was often called out, and regaled us,\r\nin his own free and noble style, with the “_Spanish Ladies_”—a\r\nfavourite thing with British man-of-war’s-men—and many other salt-sea\r\nballads and ditties, including,\r\n\r\n     “Sir Patrick Spens was the best sailor\r\n      That ever sailed the sea.”\r\n\r\n\r\nalso,\r\n\r\n     “And three times around spun our gallant ship;\r\n          Three times around spun she;\r\n      Three times around spun our gallant ship,\r\n          And she went to the bottom of the sea—\r\n              The sea, the sea, the sea,\r\n      And she went to the bottom of the sea!”\r\n\r\n\r\nThese songs would be varied by sundry _yarns_ and _twisters_ of the\r\ntop-men. And it was at these times that I always endeavoured to draw\r\nout the oldest Tritons into narratives of the war-service they had\r\nseen. There were but few of them, it is true, who had been in action;\r\nbut that only made their narratives the more valuable.\r\n\r\nThere was an old negro, who went by the name of Tawney, a\r\nsheet-anchor-man, whom we often invited into our top of tranquil\r\nnights, to hear him discourse. He was a staid and sober seaman, very\r\nintelligent, with a fine, frank bearing, one of the best men in the\r\nship, and held in high estimation by every one.\r\n\r\nIt seems that, during the last war between England and America, he had,\r\nwith several others, been “impressed” upon the high seas, out of a New\r\nEngland merchantman. The ship that impressed him was an English\r\nfrigate, the Macedonian, afterward taken by the Neversink, the ship in\r\nwhich we were sailing.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJV9WHZ6H7HPK30XSCB8R","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J19NC56FFGBCM2SWEZZY","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AMK3HGJ2T8TVBR383SQE7","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:42.103Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:52.846Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}