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Updated: June 12, 2025
The long armoured poops were a-swarm with turbaned corsairs, their weapons gleaming in the sunshine; a dozen at least were astride of the crosstree of each mainmast, all armed with bows and arrows, and the ratlines on each side of the galleys were black with men who swarmed there like locusts ready to envelop and smother their prey. The suddenness of the attack flung the Spaniard into confusion.
In those days the art of navigation was in its infancy, and the art of tacking against the wind had scarcely begun to be understood; indeed, so high were the ships out of water, with their lofty poops and forecastles, that it was scarce possible to sail them on a wind, so great was the leeway they made.
The wharves were deserted; lights began to glisten on the poops of the ships, and in the distance, over the waters of the bay, rose the moon like an enormous honey-colored disk. Only in the small fishermen's ports lingered animation.
The river was crowded with ships and inhabited boats. Junks there were, almost as large as the old Spanish galleons, with poops impending far over the water, and covered in with a roof, like a house.
I hoped to have another opportunity of meeting Captain Rover, and of hearing an account of his adventures. Thus the voyage continued. At night our lanterns were lighted, which we carried on the poops and forecastles, so that we might not run the risk of losing sight of each other. Several times strange vessels were seen, but we held on our way without being molested.
Seated at their ease on their respective "poops" toward the stern of their ships, while the sailors were obeying their behests; they touched hats to each other, exchanged compliments, and drove on, with all the indifference of two Arab horsemen accosting each other on an airing in the Desert. To them, I suppose, the great Atlantic Ocean was a puddle.
On her proper gun-deck, above these, she had fourteen guns on each side, twelves and nines. Then she had a high quarter, and a high forecastle, with eight more guns on these, having, you know, one of those queer old poops you see in old pictures. She was, therefore, a good deal higher than we; for our quarter-deck had followed the fashion and come down.
We passed among myriads of Japanese junks, gliding softly, wafted by imperceptible breezes on the smooth water; their motion could hardly be heard, and their white sails, stretched out on yards, fell languidly in a thousand horizontal folds like window-blinds, their strangely contorted poops, rising up castle-like in the air, reminding one of the towering ships of the Middle Ages.
"Theer weer a little coom, thank 'ee kindly, ma'am," the father took upon himself to answer; "but thee see it weer only just enow for the poops." We lived in a big lonely house on the edge of a wide common.
A few of these had been killed by the broadsides; but the guns had been aimed at the poops and forecastles, where the corsairs were clustered together, and consequently the number of galley slaves who had fallen was comparatively small.
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