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This was no other than our great traveller, the monkey, rigged out as a marine, and planted like a sentry on the middle step of the short ladder, which, in deep-waisted vessels, is placed at the gangway, and reaches from the deck to the top of the bulwark.

She was deep-waisted, with a high poop, and topgallant forecastle, from beneath each of which two guns were so placed that should boarders gain the deck, they would be quickly shot down.

It glorified with splendid impartiality the apple blossoms in the orchards and the vagabond blackberry bushes blooming by the roadside; and then, with many a mile of smiling pastures in its victorious wake, it burst over the low rampart of stable roofs encircling the old Lexington race-course, and, after a hasty glimpse at the horses speeding around the track and the black boys singing and slouching from stall to stall with buckets of water on their heads, it rushed impetuously into an old-fashioned, deep-waisted family barouche beside one of the stables, and shone full upon a slender, girlish figure within.

She was a deep-waisted vessel, with three masts, the foremast and mainmast square-rigged, while the aftermast carried a long lateen-shaped sail called the mizen, with a square topsail and topgallantsail. The mainsail and foresail having been brailed up and handed, Owen ordered the crew aloft to furl the main-topsail.

Ships thus built are spoken of as deep-waisted, because the centre part is deeper or lower than the after-part. The bulwarks in the same way sink in proportion at the break of the quarter-deck.

So far as he could judge, by the bird's-eye view he got, he fancied she was even frigate-built, and had a regular gundeck. In that age such craft were very common, sloops of war having that construction quite as often as that of the more modern deep-waisted vessel.

When the after-part of the deck is raised they are known as being deep-waisted, as is the case with many merchantmen. The highest deck of many men-of-war of all rates is often perfectly level, but others have a short raised deck, extending from just before the mizen-mast to the stern, which is called the poop, and in many instances serves as a cover to the captain's cabin.

"That's her, I've a notion," he said at length, pointing to a deep-waisted craft with a raised poop and forecastle, and with much greater beam than our own wall-sided merchantmen. "Keep her away a bit, Peter. Steady! That will do." The tide was running to the westward, so that we were some time getting up to the ship.