Few things can be named that more potently challenge our admiration than
a full-sized ship under way; her myriad of ropes, sails and
appointments, all so complete and well-controlled, the power of her
volition, the promptness with which she obeys the slightest movement of
the helm, the majestic grace of her inclination to the power of the
winds, and the foaming prow and long glistening wake, all go to make up
the charm and peculiarity of a nautical picture. There is true poetry in
such a scene as this, beauty fit to move the heart of an anchorite. No
wonder the sailor loves his ship like a mistress; no wonder he
discourses of her charms with the eloquence of true love and confiding
trust; no landsman can be more enamored of his promised bride.

But the craft to which we especially refer at the present writing, was a
coquette of the first class, beautiful in the extreme, and richly
meriting the name that her owners had placed in golden letters on her
stern--the "Sea Witch." She was one of that class of vessels known as
flat upon the floor, a model that caused her to draw but little water,
and enabled her to run free over a sandbar or into an inlet, where an
ordinary ship's long boat would have grounded. She was very long and
sharp, with graceful concave lines, and might have measured some five
hundred tons. Speed had evidently been the main object aimed at in her
construction, the flatness of her floor giving her great buoyancy, and
her length ensuring fleetness. These were points that would at once have
struck a sailor's eye, as he beheld the ship bowling gracefully on her
course by the power of the trade winds that so constantly befriend the
mariners in these latitudes.

We have said that the "Sea Witch" was of peculiar model, and so indeed
she was. Contrary to the usual rig of what are called clipper ships, her