Be seated in a small boat alongside a ship of six hundred or seven hundred tons, with such a height of side as this Spaniard had, lifting her platform of deck a full eighteen feet above the water for the eye to follow the ascent of the lower masts from; I say from the low level of a small boat, look up to the altitude of the starry trucks of such a ship as this _Perfecta Casada_; if you be no sailor, your eye will swim as you trace the mastheads to their airy points. To an immeasurable height will those spars seem to soar above you, yea, though they rise no higher than the cross-trees. But here was a vast cave in which a great ship--and a ship of seven hundred tons was a great ship in my time--could lie; and in this cave a lofty ship _was_ lying, partly afloat, partly stranded; the darkness in which she slumbered magnified her proportions; she loomed upon the sight as tall again as she was, and half the wonder of this wonderful show lay in the height of the black ceiling against which her topmast heads were pressed, jamming her into the position she had taken up, as though a shipwright and his men had dealt with her. The atmosphere struck cold as snow after the outer heat. A hush fell upon us as we floated in, with the bowman erect ready to hook on, and the silence was horrible, and the more horrible for the sound thrice heard in the hush that fell upon us, of a greasy gurgle of water, like a low, villainous, chuckling laugh. But all this is description, and it takes me long to submit to you what I beheld in a few breathless moments of wonder, and awe, and admiration. We were here to load dollars, not to muse and marvel. “Sort o’ ole penguin smell knocking round, aint there?” said one of the crew. “Only a Dago could have managed this job,” said another. “Why don’t Dagoes stay ashore? Blast me if even a Dutchman would have made such a muck of it.” “Hold your jaw!” I roared, in a rage; and my cry went in an echo through the cave, rebounding as a billiard ball from its cushion. What is more diabolically and instantaneously fatal to sentiment than the vulgar talk of a vulgar Englishman? A Spaniard, an Italian, a Portuguese, a Greek--blasphemes in your presence, and his coarseness adds to the romantic colors of the idealism you are musing on; but let an Englishman come alongside of you, and drop an _h_, and emotion is shivered as by a thunderbolt. The remarks of the sailor woke me up. We were alongside the ship, and the fellow in the bow had hooked on to one of the huge main-chain plates. I crawled into the channel, and over the rail, and dropped upon the deck. It was like entering a vault, and there was an odd, damp, earthy flavor in the air. I wonder, thought I, if there are two dead men in the forecastle, locked in each other’s arms? But why locked in each other’s arms? Ah, why? Fancy will give body to wild conceits at such a time and on such an occasion as this.