or Hause, is generally understood to imply the situation of the cables before the ship's stem, when she is moored with two anchors out from forward, viz. one on the starboard, and the other on the larboard bow. Hence it is usual to say, "she has a clear hawse, or a foul hawse." It also denotes any small distance a head of a ship, or between her head and the anchors employed to ride her, as, "He has anchored in our hawse, The brig fell athwart our hawse," &c.

A ship is said to ride with a clear hawse, when the cables are directed to their anchors, without lying athwart the stem; or crofting, or being twisted round each other by the ship's winding about, according to the change of the wind, tide, or current.

A foul hawse, on the contrary, implies that the cables lie across the stem, or bear upon each other, so as to be rubbed and chafed by the motion of the vessel. The hawse accordingly is foul, by having either a cross, an elbow, or a round turn. If the larboard cable, lying across the stem, points out on the starboard side, while the starboard cable at the same time grows out on the larboard side, there is a cross in the hawse. If, after this, the ship, without returning to her former position, continues to wind about the same way, so as to perform an entire revolution, each of the cables will be twisted round the other, and then directed out from the opposite bow, forming what is called a round turn. An elbow is produced when the ship stops in the middle of that revolution, after having had a cross; or, in other words, if she rides with her head northward with a clear hawse, and afterwards turns quite round so as to direct her head northward again, she will have an elbow.

Hawse-Holes, certain cylindrical holes cut through the bows of a ship on each side of the stem, through which the cables pass in order to be drawn into or let out of the vessel as occasion requires. They are fortified on each side by the

Hawse-Pieces, a name given to the foremost timbers of a ship, whose lower ends rest on the knuckle-timber, or the foremost of the cant-timbers. They are generally parallel to the stem, having their upper ends sometimes terminated by the lower part of the beakhead; and otherwise, by the top of the bow, particularly in small ships and merchantmen.