My first voyage, as officer, was made in the good ship "Dublin." She was six hundred tons register, and of the style said to be built, Down East, by the mile and sawed off. Her bow and stern were so square, they gave an impression of truth to this statement, but for all that she was a staunch, well built vessel, and though twenty-one years old was still an able and trustworthy ship. Her worthy owner, one of the merchant princes of Boston, used to go down on the wharf and rub his hands with delight when the old "Dublin" came into port. She was his favorite ship, and her blunt bow was more attractive to him than the rakish model of the modern clippers. He would tell how the copper bolts were driven into her, only one inch a day, to make them "fit solid;" how the timbers were "scarfed" and "dowelled," and many other things that it would need a ship builder's manual to interpret. He considered a great honor had been done me, by the permission to go to sea as third mate of her, and shook his head with misgivings when he heard that the captain had engaged so young and inexperienced an officer. I had been to sea four voyages, one of them over fourteen months around the world, before the mast. I could hand, reef and steer, and do the ordinary work on the rigging, as well as most sailors, so I did not consider my presumption very great. Captain Streeter, her commander, was a fine-looking man of about forty years. He was tall and well formed, with dark complexion, black hair, beard and moustache, and a coal-black, flashing eye that bespoke a strong will and a passionate nature. He was very fluent in speech, and gave the impression on a first hearing that he was what sailors call "a blower." When he engaged me, he gave a long and impressive harangue. He didn't want an officer that was afraid of sailors, but at the same time he allowed no one to abuse the crew, and especially objected to the use of profane language, which he condemned as the most foolish of practices. He appointed the day for me to come on board and I left him pleased with my success, but with a lurking suspicion that my fair-talking captain might prove to belong to the class known as "shore-saints and sea-devils." The owner, however, was one of the best men living, a noble philanthropist, and a vice-president of the Seamen's Friend Society. I therefore felt some assurance that his ship would have a respectable captain and be well conducted. At six o'clock, one dark morning in the end of November, my fond father bade me farewell at the door, as I left my pleasant home and its gentle occupants, and trudged to East Boston, in a storm of sleet, to enter upon a sphere and mingle with associates so contrasted, that I needed no other illustration, for the next few months, to impress upon my mind the two extremes of the future life.