he walked, joyfully, as one who greets an old friend.

The wharf was practically deserted. An ancient watchman was dozing in
a sort of sentry box, but he did not wake. There was a pile of
foreign-looking crates and boxes at the further end of the pier,
evidently the last bit of cargo waiting to be carted away. The captain
inspected the pile, recognized the goods as Chinese and Japanese, then
read the name on the big ship's stern. She was the Empress of the Ocean,
and her home port was Liverpool.

Captain Elisha, as a free-born Yankee skipper, had an inherited and
cherished contempt for British "lime-juicers," but he could not help
admiring this one. To begin with, her size and tonnage were enormous.
Also, she was four-masted, instead of the usual three, and her hull and
lower spars were of steel instead of wood. A steel sailing vessel was
something of a novelty to the captain, and he was seized with a desire
to go aboard and inspect.

The ladder from ship to wharf was down, of course, and getting on board
was an easy matter. When he reached the deck and looked about him, the
great size of the ship was still more apparent. The bulwarks were as
high as a short man's head. She was decked over aft, and, as the captain
said afterwards, "her cabins had nigh as many stories as a house."
From the roof of the "first story," level with the bulwarks, extended
a series of bridges, which could be hoisted or lowered, and by means of
which her officers could walk from stern to bow without descending to
the deck. There was a good-sized engine house forward, beyond the galley
and forecastle. Evidently the work of hoisting anchors and canvas was
done by steam.