Sometimes Earlier And
Sometimes Later, The Captain Came Down; When, After A Good Drenching
In The Surf, We Went Aboard, Changed Our Clothes, And Turned In For
The Night - Yet Not For All The Night, For There Was The Anchor Watch
To Stand.
This leads me to speak of my watchmate for nine months - and,
taking him all in all, the most remarkable man I have ever
seen - Tom Harris.
An hour, every night, while lying in port,
Harris and myself had the deck to ourselves, and walking fore
and aft, night after night, for months, I learned his whole
character and history, and more about foreign nations, the habits
of different people, and especially the secrets of sailors' lives
and hardships, and also of practical seamanship, (in which he was
abundantly capable of instructing me,) than I could ever have
learned elsewhere. But the most remarkable thing about him, was
the power of his mind. His memory was perfect; seeming to form a
regular chain, reaching from his earliest childhood up to the time
I knew him, without one link wanting. His power of calculation,
too, was remarkable. I called myself pretty quick at figures, and
had been through a course of mathematical studies; but, working by
my head, I was unable to keep within sight of this man, who had
never been beyond his arithmetic: so rapid was his calculation.
He carried in his head not only a log-book of the whole voyage,
in which everything was complete and accurate, and from which no
one ever thought of appealing, but also an accurate registry of
all the cargo; knowing, precisely, where each thing was, and how
many hides we took in at every port.
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