He was six feet high, wore thick, cowhide boots,
and brown coat and trowsers, and, except a sun-burnt
Complexion,
had not the slightest appearance of a sailor; yet he had been forty
years in the whale trade, and, as he said himself, had owned ships,
built ships, and sailed ships. His boat's crew were a pretty raw set,
just out of the bush, and as the sailor's phrase is, "hadn't got the
hayseed out of their hair." Captain Terry convinced our captain that
our reckoning was a little out, and, having spent the day on board,
put off in his boat at sunset for his ship, which was now six or
eight miles astern. He began a "yarn" when he came on board,
which lasted, with but little intermission, for four hours.
It was all about himself, and the Peruvian government, and the
Dublin frigate, and Lord James Townshend, and President Jackson,
and the ship Ann M'Kim of Baltimore. It would probably never have
come to an end, had not a good breeze sprung up, which sent him off
to his own vessel. One of the lads who came in his boat, a thoroughly
countrified-looking fellow, seemed to care very little about the vessel,
rigging, or anything else, but went round looking at the live stock,
and leaned over the pig-sty, and said he wished he was back again
tending his father's pigs.
At eight o'clock we altered our course to the northward, bound for
Juan Fernandez.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 56 of 618
Words from 15048 to 15303
of 170236
