black hull and gilded figurehead, she seemed too small to support
her prodigious cloud of sail. For her there were to be no
leisurely voyages with Captain Bob Waterman on the quarter-deck.
Home from Canton she sped in seventy-seven days and then in
seventy-nine--records which were never surpassed.

With what consummate skill and daring this master mariner drove
his ship and how the race of hardy sailors to which he belonged
compared with those of other nations may be descried in the log
of another of them, Captain Philip Dumaresq, homeward bound from
China in 1849 in the clipper Great Britain. Three weeks out from
Java Head she had overtaken and passed seven ships heading the
same way, and then she began to rush by them in one gale after
another. Her log records her exploits in such entries as these:
"Passed a ship under double reefs, we with our royals and
studdingsails set . . . . Passed a ship laying-to under a
close-reefed maintopsail . . . . Split all three topsails and had
to heave to . . . . Seven vessels in sight and we outsail all of
them . . . . Under double-reefed topsails passed several vessels
hove-to." Much the same record might be read in the log of the
medium clipper Florence--and it is the same story of carrying
sail superbly on a ship which had been built to stand up under
it: "Passed two barks under reefed courses and close-reefed
topsails standing the same way, we with royals and topgallant
studding-sails," or "Passed a ship under topsails, we with our
royals set." For eleven weeks "the topsail halliards were started
only once, to take in a single reef for a few hours." It is not
surprising, therefore, to learn that, seventeen days out from
Shanghai, the Florence exchanged signals with the English ship
John Hagerman, which had sailed thirteen days before her.