Looking at these reminders of a bygone day, one can visualize the ships of which they formed a part, can almost identify the craft beneath whose soaring bowsprits these figures once gazed forth across the tumbling, foam-flecked brine. Here, leaning against a cocoanut palm, is a Roman legionary, his short sword broken at the hilt as though in some hard-fought battle, his shield dented and bruised, and his wooden face seamed and scarred. Faded, weather-beaten, and forlorn, he is still a martial figure. He has fought more battles, has seen victory in more hard-won fights than ever soldier of Cæsar,—battles against the elements, struggles between lashing, storm-flung waves and puny man,—and while in the end the sea was victorious, yet we know that the stern-visaged warrior fought a good fight and bore the brunt of battle always in the foremost rank, ever there with threatening falchion at the bows. Massive, heroic he is, and we feel sure that in years gone he looked proudly, defiantly upon the sea from some ship of war or privateer with grinning ports along her sides. Close by, coquettishly peeping from behind a pile of junk, is a very different figure, a female form with doll-like, simpering face, long, flowing hair, and clinging draperies. Upon her cheeks are still patches of pink, as though she had but freshly rouged; her skirts and low-cut bodice still are gaudy with red and yellow, and we can see that once her wooden tresses were of raven hue. Looking at her, we can reconstruct the ship she graced, we can see the bluff-bowed, wallowing, honest merchantman, and we feel sure, could we but look upon the stern, we should see, painted across her counter, “Polly” or “Betsy” or perchance even “Mary Ann.” Near this lady, with her fixed wooden smile that has withstood the tempests of centuries, a sailor lad in glazed hat lurches drunkenly, propped up by an iron post just as his living counterpart no doubt was supported many a time after a glorious night ashore. Now his eyes are fixed in an unwinking stare upon raven-haired Polly, while behind him, with outflung arm, one shapely foot spurning a carven shield, poises a Victory. A masterpiece she, albeit her wings are sadly clipped and disrespectful insects have pitted her classic features with their borings until she looks as though she had suffered from smallpox. But the finely chiseled draperies, the perfectly proportioned, softly rounded limbs speak eloquently of beauty long since faded, of expert craftsmanship. All who love ships must pause before her in reverence, for once she flew gracefully at the sharp prow of some famous clipper-ship, a grayhound of the sea, a fabric such as never will be seen again,—the very acme of Yankee shipbuilding skill. A craft with sky-piercing masts, vast tapering yards, and acres of billowing canvas, the clipper was the queen of transatlantic liners, and proudly she flaunted the Stars and Stripes for all the world to see.