CHAPTER II.

SOME ACCOUNT OF THE SHIP

FIRST AND foremost, I must give some account of the Julia herself; or
"Little Jule," as the sailors familiarly styled her.

She was a small barque of a beautiful model, something more than two
hundred tons, Yankee-built and very old. Fitted for a privateer out
of a New England port during the war of 1812, she had been captured
at sea by a British cruiser, and, after seeing all sorts of service,
was at last employed as a government packet in the Australian seas.
Being condemned, however, about two years previous, she was purchased
at auction by a house in Sydney, who, after some slight repairs,
dispatched her on the present voyage.

Notwithstanding the repairs, she was still in a miserable plight. The
lower masts were said to be unsound; the standing rigging was much
worn; and, in some places, even the bulwarks were quite rotten.
Still, she was tolerably tight, and but little more than the ordinary
pumping of a morning served to keep her free.

But all this had nothing to do with her sailing; at that, brave Little
Jule, plump Little Jule, was a witch. Blow high, or blow low, she was
always ready for the breeze; and when she dashed the waves from her
prow, and pranced, and pawed the sea, you never thought of her
patched sails and blistered hull. How the fleet creature would fly
before the wind! rolling, now and then, to be sure, but in very