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- 3028
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:14.838Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 2958
- text
- I may as well here glance at some trials and tribulations of a similar
kind. I had no mattress, or bed-clothes, of any sort; for the thought
of them had never entered my mind before going to sea; so that I was
obliged to sleep on the bare boards of my bunk; and when the ship
pitched violently, and almost stood upon end, I must have looked like
an Indian baby tied to a plank, and hung up against a tree like a
crucifix.
I have already mentioned my total want of table-tools; never dreaming,
that, in this respect, going to sea as a sailor was something like
going to a boarding-school, where you must furnish your own spoon and
knife, fork, and napkin. But at length, I was so happy as to barter
with a steerage passenger a silk handkerchief of mine for a half-gallon
iron pot, with hooks to it, to hang on a grate; and this pot I used to
present at the cook-house for my allowance of coffee and tea. It gave
me a good deal of trouble, though, to keep it clean, being much
disposed to rust; and the hooks sometimes scratched my face when I was
drinking; and it was unusually large and heavy; so that my breakfasts
were deprived of all ease and satisfaction, and became a toil and a
labor to me. And I was forced to use the same pot for my bean-soup,
three times a week, which imparted to it a bad flavor for coffee.
I can not tell how I really suffered in many ways for my improvidence
and heedlessness, in going to sea so ill provided with every thing
calculated to make my situation at all comfortable, or even tolerable.
In time, my wretched “long togs” began to drop off my back, and I
looked like a Sam Patch, shambling round the deck in my rags and the
wreck of my gaff-topsail-boots. I often thought what my friends at home
would have said, if they could but get one peep at me. But I hugged
myself in my miserable shooting-jacket, when I considered that that
degradation and shame never could overtake me; yet, I thought it a
galling mockery, when I remembered that my sisters had promised to tell
all inquiring friends, that Wellingborough had gone _“abroad”_ just as
if I was visiting Europe on a tour with my tutor, as poor simple Mr.
Jones had hinted to the captain.
Still, in spite of the melancholy which sometimes overtook me, there
were several little incidents that made me forget myself in the
contemplation of the strange and to me most wonderful sights of the
sea.
And perhaps nothing struck into me such a feeling of wild romance, as a
view of the first vessel we spoke. It was of a clear sunny afternoon,
and she came bearing down upon us, a most beautiful sight, with all her
sails spread wide. She came very near, and passed under our stern; and
as she leaned over to the breeze, showed her decks fore and aft; and I
saw the strange sailors grouped upon the forecastle, and the cook
looking out of his cook-house with a ladle in his hand, and the captain
in a green jacket sitting on the taffrail with a speaking-trumpet.
And here, had this vessel come out of the infinite blue ocean, with all
these human beings on board, and the smoke tranquilly mounting up into
the sea-air from the cook’s funnel as if it were a chimney in a city;
and every thing looking so cool, and calm, and of-course, in the midst
of what to me, at least, seemed a superlative marvel.
Hoisted at her mizzen-peak was a red flag, with a turreted white castle
in the middle, which looked foreign enough, and made me stare all the
harder.
Our captain, who had put on another hat and coat, and was lounging in
an elegant attitude on the poop, now put his high polished brass
trumpet to his mouth, and said in a very rude voice for conversation,
_“Where from?”_
To which the other captain rejoined with some outlandish Dutch
gibberish, of which we could only make out, that the ship belonged to
Hamburg, as her flag denoted.
_Hamburg!_
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- Chunk 3