Upon our arrival alongside I was somewhat surprised to observe that the crew had not taken the trouble to throw open the gangway, or put over a side ladder; I had therefore to watch my opportunity and scramble aboard by way of the main chains.  The _Virginia_ was a very fine craft indeed, measuring quite eight hundred tons, and carrying a fine, lofty, full poop, by the rail of which stood a typical Yankee, eyeing me with even greater malevolence than the Yankee of that day was wont to exhibit toward the Britisher.  He was tall, lean, and cadaverous, with long, straight, colourless hair reaching almost to his shoulders, and a scanty goatee beard adorning his otherwise clean-shaven face.  His outer garments, consisting of blue swallow-tail coat with brass buttons and white kerseymere waistcoat and trousers--the former also trimmed with brass buttons--seemed to have been made for a man many sizes smaller than himself; for the coat was distinctly short at the waist, while the sleeves terminated some four inches above the wrist; his waistcoat revealed some two inches of soiled shirt between its lower hem and the top of his trousers; and the latter garments did not reach his bony ankles by quite three inches.  He wore an enormous stick-up collar reaching almost to the level of his eyes; his head was graced by an old white beaver hat of the pattern worn by the postboys at that period, and the nap looked as though it had never been brushed the right way since it had been worked up into a hat.  On his feet he wore white cotton stockings or socks and low-cut slippers; he carried both hands in his trousers pockets, and his left cheek was distended by a huge plug of tobacco, upon which he was chewing vigorously when I scrambled in over the rail and leaped down on the deck.  As I did so I raised my hat and courteously bade him good-morning.