Chapter 35

GALLIOTS, COAST-OF-GUINEA-MAN, AND FLOATING CHAPEL

Another very curious craft often seen in the Liverpool docks, is the
Dutch galliot, an old-fashioned looking gentleman, with hollow waist,
high prow and stern, and which, seen lying among crowds of tight Yankee
traders, and pert French brigantines, always reminded me of a cocked hat
among modish beavers.

The construction of the galliot has not altered for centuries; and the
northern European nations, Danes and Dutch, still sail the salt seas in
this flat-bottomed salt-cellar of a ship; although, in addition to
these, they have vessels of a more modern kind.

They seldom paint the galliot; but scrape and varnish all its planks and
spars, so that all over it resembles the "bright side" or polished
streak, usually banding round an American ship.

Some of them are kept scrupulously neat and clean, and remind one of a
well-scrubbed wooden platter, or an old oak table, upon which much wax
and elbow vigor has been expended. Before the wind, they sail well; but
on a bowline, owing to their broad hulls and flat bottoms, they make
leeway at a sad rate.

Every day, some strange vessel entered Prince's Dock; and hardly would I
gaze my fill at some outlandish craft from Surat or the Levant, ere a
still more outlandish one would absorb my attention.

Among others, I remember, was a little brig from the Coast of Guinea. In
appearance, she was the ideal of a slaver; low, black, clipper-built
about the bows, and her decks in a state of most piratical disorder.

She carried a long, rusty gun, on a swivel, amid-ships; and that gun
was a curiosity in itself. It must have been some old veteran, condemned
by the government, and sold for any thing it would fetch. It was an
antique, covered with half-effaced inscriptions, crowns, anchors,
eagles; and it had two handles near the trunnions, like those of a
tureen. The knob on the breach was fashioned into a dolphin's head; and
by a comical conceit, the touch-hole formed the orifice of a human ear;
and a stout tympanum it must have had, to have withstood the concussions
it had heard.

The brig, heavily loaded, lay between two large ships in ballast; so
that its deck was at least twenty feet below those of its neighbors.
Thus shut in, its hatchways looked like the entrance to deep vaults or
mines; especially as her men were wheeling out of her hold some kind of
ore, which might have been gold ore, so scrupulous were they in evening
the bushel measures, in which they transferred it to the quay; and so
particular was the captain, a dark-skinned whiskerando, in a Maltese cap
and tassel, in standing over the sailors, with his pencil and
memorandum-book in hand.

The crew were a