Page:The Clipper Ship Era.djvu/288

228 On this famous passage the Northern Light made the run from San Francisco to Cape Horn in 38 days, and was off Rio Janeiro in 52 days, thence to Boston Light in 24 days. Her best day's run was 354 miles. She made the round voyage to San Francisco and return, including detention in port, in exactly seven months. Captain Hatch, her commander, was a thorough clipper ship captain, who never allowed his ship to suffer for want of canvas, and on this passage he brought his vessel across Massachusetts Bay before a fresh easterly breeze, carrying her ringtail, skysails, and studding-sails on both sides, alow and aloft, until she was off Boston Light—a superb marine picture, and one seldom seen by landsmen even in those days.

No more beautiful sight can be imagined than a morning at sea, with these magnificent vessels racing in mid-ocean, perhaps two or three of them in sight at once; the sun rising amid golden clouds; the dark blue sea flecked with glistening white caps; long, low black hulls cleaving a pathway of sparkling foam; towering masts, and yards covered with, snowy canvas which bellies to the crisp morning breeze as if sculptured in marble; the officers alert and keen for the contest; the African cook showing his woolly head and grinning, good-natured face out through the weather door of the galley, while the wholesome odor of steaming coffee gladdens the hearts of officers and men. And after all, when has anything ever tasted half so refreshing as a tin pot of hot coffee, sweetened with molasses, under the lee of the weather bulwark, in the chill dawn of the morning watch?