"
"Well," sais I, "as I was a sayin', Captain, give me a craft like
this, that spreads its wings like a bird, and looks as if it was born,
not made, a whole-sail breeze, and a seaman every inch of him like you
on the deck, who looks you in the face, in a way as if he'd like to
say, only bragging ain't genteel, Ain't she a clipper now, and ain't I
the man to handle her? Now this ain't the case in a steamer. They
ain't vessels, they are more like floating factories; you see the
steam machines and the enormous fires, and the clouds of smoke, but
you don't visit the rooms where the looms are, that's all. They plough
through the sea dead and heavy, like a subsoiler with its eight-horse
team; there is no life in 'em; they can't dance on the waters as if
they rejoiced in their course, but divide the waves as a rock does in
a river; they seem to move more in defiance of the sea than as if they
were in an element of their own.
"They puff and blow like boasters braggin' that they extract from the
ocean the means to make it help to subdue itself. It is a war in the
elements, fire and water contendin' for victory. They are black,
dingy, forbiddin' looking sea monsters. It is no wonder the
superstitious Spaniard, when he first saw one, said: 'A vessel that
goes against the tide, and against the wind, and without sails, goes
against God,' or that the simple negro thought it was a sea-devil.
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