Rensselaer Republican, Volume 12, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 April 1880 — A Lessen in Navigation. [ARTICLE]

A Lessen in Navigation.

Dp one more block, and we come upon the ships—white ships, black ships, iron ships, wooden snipe, big, little and medium ships, ships of all sorts. They aH go under the general name of shipe, and it fa well - they do,, for not one New Yorker in a dozen, knows the difference between a bark; and a pleasure yacht, though he goes! down the bay every day is the summer. Here is a good-natured-looking sailor, leaning against a post in a nice sunny place; he will give us some information about the shins. “ That thereP” says the sailor, in » tone that seems to pity our ignorance, and gividg his trousers a tremendous hitch, “that ain’t no ship; that’s a brig. Don’t you know the difference atween a ship and a brig? Why, bless you, a ship—but I can’t talk too much; my throat troubles me. This here dry airparches it up, like, and; I—” There are so many establishments in the neighborhood for the moistening of parched throats that this difficulty is soon remedied, and the sailor invites ns to take a seat on the bottom of an upturned yawl, where we will be sheltered from the wind, while he explains the mystery of brigs and barks. “ It’s a shame,” says he, “ that you landsmen don’t know more about ships. Now, we sailors know a church from a hotel—most of us—and why shouldn’t you know more about our housesP Pll tell you. That there wessel there's a ship, an’ Pll tell you why: because she has three masts and square sails. That’s what makes her a ship. If she was only as big as this here yawl, and that’s not very big, and had three masts and square sails, she’d still be shiprigged. The first mast, up by the bowsprit, is the fore-mast, the middle one is the main-mast, and the last is the mizzen-mast. Each of these here masts is subdivided, as the school-masters say, into three parte: the lower mast, the top-mast, and the to'-gallant mast. Now you know more about navigation than old Captain Skittle did, wlfen he run the Three Sisters on a rock.

“Do you see this weasel Just behind ns? She’s a bark, and that s one of the firs test things for you to learn, if you're going to be a sailor, how to tell a bark from a ship; ’cause if you was on watch, and you reported a ship on the lee bow, and she turned out to be a bark, the Cap’on would give you salt in your grog for a fortnight. A bark has three masts like a ship, but the mizzen-mast is schooner rigged, instead of having square sails. A brig has only two masts, both square rigged, and a brigantine is the same as a brig, only .square rigged in front and schooner rigged behind, as a landsman would say . , Now you know it all, and con take aship; • across the ocean without a compass.” j The lesson in navigation finished, the ! sailor’s throat was in such a parched! condition that it took three inward ap-j plications of rum, well seasoned with! molasses, to get it in working order, again. Then ne explained how a pilot-! boat might always be distinguished byj the big number painted on its sail; and, a ferry-boat by its pilot-house at each! end.—A. Y. Times.