Whaling-captains came from far to survey it.

With one voice they pronounced it "A 1," and in their opinion "fit to smash ice." The oldest captain shook my hand warmly when the breast-hooks were put in, declaring that he could see no reason why the _Spray_ should not "cut in bow-head" yet off the coast of Greenland.

The much-esteemed stem-piece was from the butt of the smartest kind of a pasture oak.

It afterward split a coral patch in two at the Keeling Islands, and did not receive a blemish.

Better timber for a ship than pasture white oak never grew.