and the tough salt junk. There were no "manavellings" aboard the tarnation hooker and the Old Man only served out rum once during the voyage, and that was when the Ark was hove-to under a goose-winged maintopsail and foretopmast staysail in the latitude and longitude of Mount Ararat, waiting for the dove to come aboard.
I remember I used to listen with my mouth wide open to the marvelous stories of this old salt. I once asked him to describe the interior fittings of Captain Noah's ship, but from what I could gather from him there wasn't much gilt gingerbread work in her main saloon. Everything was for use; nothing for ornament. There weren't even brass hoops on the mess kids. Besides, she leaked like a sieve and wouldn't steer well unless close-hauled on a bowline.
The ship Argo, in which Jason sailed in search of the Golden Fleece, had no artistic decorations below, but her hull, from all accounts, was a "dandy." Built of lofty pines which flourished on Mount Pelion, she was pierced for fifty oars. She was daubed with coal-black pitch, and her bows were painted with vermilion. I don't believe she ever made more than four knots an hour, even with fifty heroes pulling their hardest at the oars, all keeping time to the music of the harp of Orpheus, who had too much low cunning to do any work himself. The Argo was
