Bluenoses have no use for nippers, as Britishers call apprentices. But if they had, {119} and the reader was a green one, he would just about begin to know the ropes and find his sea legs by the time that our _Victoria_ had run her southing down to within another day's sail of the foul-weather zone in the roaring forties round the Horn, which seamen call 'Old Stiff.' Sails are shifted again, and the best new suit is bent; for the coming gales have a clear sweep from the Antarctic to the stormiest coast of all America, and the enormous, grey-backed Cape Horners are the biggest seas in the world. The best helmsmen are on duty now. Not even every Bluenose can steer, any more than every Englishman can box or every Frenchman fence. There are a dozen different ways of mishandling a vessel under sail. Let your attention wander, and she'll run up into the wind and perhaps get in irons, so that she won't cast either way. Let her fall off when you're running free, and she'll broach to and get taken aback. Or simply let her yaw about a bit instead of holding true, and you'll lose a knot or two an hour. But do none of these careless things, observe all the rules as well, and even then you will never make a helmsman unless it's born in you. Steering is blown into you by the wind and soaked into you by the water. And you must also have {120} that inborn faculty of touch which tells you instinctively how to meet a vessel's vagaries--and no two vessels are alike--as well as how to make her fall in with all the humours of a wayward ocean. The hungry great Antarctic wind comes swooping down. The _Victoria_ lays over to it, her forefoot slashing, her lee side hissing, the windward rigging strained and screaming, and every stitch of canvas drawing full. Still the skipper carries on. He and his vessel have a name to keep up; and he has carried on till all was blue ere this, and left more than one steam kettle panting. Every timber, plank, mast, yard, and tackle wakes to new life and thrills in response to the sails. She answers her helm quickly, eagerly. She rides the galloping waters now as you ride her. And as she rises to each fresh wave you also rise, with the same exultant spring, and take the leap in your stride.