In the lower bay we found a very light southerly wind blowing, and a German iron bark with painted ports that had passed us outward bound, returned and anchored in the Horseshoe, not caring to continue under conditions somewhat unfavorable. However, we kept on, and commenced to make sail off the point of the Hook; and I must here assert that I never saw such confusion as reigned during this operation. The disorder when hauling into the stream was bad enough, but when the command was given to cast off the gaskets the ship was in a perfect whirl till the mizzen sky-sail had been swayed aloft, and as it takes several hours to make sail when first leaving port, the mates were almost out of their minds when the job had been finished. All hands began with the customary blackguarding of the men who had bent the sails, and the second mate passed the afternoon taking his oath that he “never did see quite the like of the mess them riggers had made aloft,” while the men were jumping about the decks like headless chickens, trying to find where the various ropes led to, for no two ships are rigged alike. It may be imagined how confusing it is for a man to come aboard of a ship and find that some of the sheets and clew-lines are not belayed in the same place as in the vessel that he left only a week ago. Indeed an intelligent second mate will often be two or three days getting the “hang” of a sailing vessel. Before dark, though, everything had been straightened out, and the ropes coiled away over the pins, and the decks at length began to assume that well-ordered appearance so attractive in a large square-rigger.