She was a fine vessel, and well-found with boats and gear.  How great a contrast did she offer to the frail canoe in which we had lately made so long a voyage!  How strongly built and rigged!  How well calculated to stand the buffeting of the winds and waves!  How impossible did it seem that any harm could come to her!  I felt this, I own, as I walked her deck.  She had already taken twenty whales, or fish, as sailors wrongly call them.  For some time Captain Brown was very civil and good-natured, and we began to hope that our friend had received a wrong account of him.