From the foregoing perfunctory description of the gear attached to _one_ of the lightest yards in the ship, some slight idea may be gathered of the immense combination of cordage required to work about thirty sails, some with much more gear than a royal, of course. But my principal object in attempting to describe the gear of the royal yard was to show what used to be considered fair work for an ordinary seaman in "crossing" it. The running gear was, of course, already aloft; the standing gear and the sail were sent up with the yard, which was swayed aloft by a long rope running through the sheave-hole in the masthead, from which the halyards were temporarily unrove. The youngster charged with the duty of crossing the yard goes aloft as it is swayed up, guiding it clear of the rigging as it jerkily ascends. Of course it is so secured that it rises vertically, and the work of keeping it clear of the rigging when the ship tumbles about is by no means easy; and, of course, the higher it ascends the greater is the motion, until, when it is high enough, it often taxes the utmost strength and skill of the smartest youngster to deal with it. As the upper yard-arm reaches the top-gallant masthead he must put on the brace and lift for that side and cast off the "yard-arm stop," then, as speedily afterwards as possible, get the lower brace on, and the lift for that side also secure. As soon as that is done, he can, by casting loose the quarter stop, allow the yard to be lowered in its proper horizontal position. It will now be supported by the lifts, so that he can fix the parral to the mast, and those on deck having steadied the braces tight, the worst of his troubles are over. He can now "come up" the yard rope by which the yard has been hoisted, and, letting it run down on deck, reeve the tye of the halyards in its place. Then he must secure all the gear to the sail properly, sheets, clew-lines, and bunt-lines, loose the sail, sing out "Sheet home the royal," "light up" the gear, and, when the sail is set, "stop" it loosely with one turn of roping-twine, so that it will not chafe the sail by being stretched tightly over it, and come down. If he can do all that smartly and well, in spite of the ship's uneasy motion, he is superior to two-thirds of the so-called able seamen of to-day.