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- 2208
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- CHAPTER XII.
HE GIVES SOME ACCOUNT OF ONE OF HIS SHIPMATES CALLED JACKSON
While we sat eating our beef and biscuit, two of the men got into a
dispute, about who had been sea-faring the longest; when Jackson, who
had mixed the _burgoo,_ called upon them in a loud voice to cease their
clamor, for he would decide the matter for them. Of this sailor, I
shall have something more to say, as I get on with my narrative; so, I
will here try to describe him a little.
Did you ever see a man, with his hair shaved off, and just recovered
from the yellow fever? Well, just such a looking man was this sailor.
He was as yellow as gamboge, had no more whisker on his cheek, than I
have on my elbows. His hair had fallen out, and left him very bald,
except in the nape of his neck, and just behind the ears, where it was
stuck over with short little tufts, and looked like a worn-out
shoe-brush. His nose had broken down in the middle, and he squinted
with one eye, and did not look very straight out of the other. He
dressed a good deal like a Bowery boy; for he despised the ordinary
sailor-rig; wearing a pair of great over-all blue trowsers, fastened
with suspenders, and three red woolen shirts, one over the other; for
he was subject to the rheumatism, and was not in good health, he said;
and he had a large white wool hat, with a broad rolling brim. He was a
native of New York city, and had a good deal to say about
_highlanders,_ and _rowdies,_ whom he denounced as only good for the
gallows; but I thought he looked a good deal like a _highlander_
himself.
His name, as I have said, was Jackson; and he told us, he was a near
relation of General Jackson of New Orleans, and swore terribly, if any
one ventured to question what he asserted on that head. In fact he was
a great bully, and being the best seaman on board, and very overbearing
every way, all the men were afraid of him, and durst not contradict
him, or cross his path in any thing. And what made this more wonderful
was, that he was the weakest man, bodily, of the whole crew; and I have
no doubt that young and small as I was then, compared to what I am now,
I could have thrown him down. But he had such an overawing way with
him; such a deal of brass and impudence, such an unflinching face, and
withal was such a hideous looking mortal, that Satan himself would have
run from him. And besides all this, it was quite plain, that he was by
nature a marvelously clever, cunning man, though without education; and
understood human nature to a kink, and well knew whom he had to deal
with; and then, one glance of his squinting eye, was as good as a
knock-down, for it was the most deep, subtle, infernal looking eye,
that I ever saw lodged in a human head. I believe, that by good rights
it must have belonged to a wolf, or starved tiger; at any rate, I would
defy any oculist, to turn out a glass eye, half so cold, and snaky, and
deadly. It was a horrible thing; and I would give much to forget that I
have ever seen it; for it haunts me to this day.
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