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- himself. I therefore spoke vaguely of our adventures, and assumed the
decided air of a master; which I perceived was not lost upon the rude
Islander. As for Jarl, and what he might reveal, I embraced the first
opportunity to impress upon him the importance of never divulging our
flight from the Arcturion; nor in any way to commit himself on that
head: injunctions which he faithfully promised to observe.
If not wholly displeased with the fine form of Samoa, despite his
savage lineaments, and mutilated member, I was much less conciliated by
the person of Annatoo; who, being sinewy of limb, and neither young,
comely, nor amiable, was exceedingly distasteful in my eyes. Besides,
she was a tigress. Yet how avoid admiring those Penthesilian qualities
which so signally had aided Samoa, in wresting the Parki from its
treacherous captors. Nevertheless, it was indispensable that she should
at once be brought under prudent subjection; and made to know, once for
all, that though conjugally a rebel, she must be nautically submissive.
For to keep the sea with a Calmuc on board, seemed next to impossible.
In most military marines, they are prohibited by law; no officer may
take his Pandora and her bandbox off soundings.
By the way, this self-same appellative, Pandora, has been bestowed upon
vessels. There was a British ship by that name, dispatched in quest of
the mutineers of the Bounty. But any old tar might have prophesied her
fate. Bound home she was wrecked on a reef off New South Wales.
Pandora, indeed! A pretty name for a ship: fairly smiting Fate in the
face. But in this matter of christening ships of war, Christian nations
are but too apt to be dare-devils. Witness the following: British names
all—The Conqueror, the Defiance, the Revenge, the Spitfire, the
Dreadnaught, the Thunderer, and the Tremendous; not omitting the Etna,
which, in the Roads of Corfu, was struck by lightning, coming nigh
being consumed by fire from above. But almost potent as Moses’ rod,
Franklin’s proved her salvation.
With the above catalogue, compare we the Frenchman’s; quite
characteristic of the aspirations of Monsieur:—The Destiny, the
Glorious, the Magnanimous, the Magnificent, the Conqueror, the
Triumphant, the Indomitable, the Intrepid, the Mont-Blanc. Lastly, the
Dons; who have ransacked the theology of the religion of peace for fine
names for their fighting ships; stopping not at designating one of
their three-deckers, The Most Holy Trinity. But though, at Trafalgar,
the Santissima Trinidada thundered like Sinai, her thunders were
silenced by the victorious cannonade of the Victory.
And without being blown into splinters by artillery, how many of these
Redoubtables and Invincibles have succumbed to the waves, and like
braggarts gone down before hurricanes, with their bravadoes broad on
their bows.
Much better the American names (barring Scorpions, Hornets, and Wasps;)
Ohio, Virginia, Carolina, Vermont. And if ever these Yankees fight
great sea engagements—which Heaven forefend!—how glorious, poetically
speaking, to range up the whole federated fleet, and pour forth a
broadside from Florida to Maine. Ay, ay, very glorious indeed! yet in
that proud crowing of cannon, how shall the shade of peace-loving Penn
be astounded, to see the mightiest murderer of them all, the great
Pennsylvania, a very namesake of his. Truly, the Pennsylvania’s guns
should be the wooden ones, called by men-of- war’s-men, Quakers.
But all this is an episode, made up of digressions. Time to tack ship,
and return.
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