4 MAKING A MASTER. 



"Here," he shouted to me, "take these and 

 carry them to my cabin, and if you put one of 

 your teeth in them I will break every bone in 

 your body." 



Thus early and abruptly I was made aware of 

 the difference between an old school captain 

 ashore and afloat, and reminded of the remark of 

 a previous cabin-boy of the Swift, who had said 

 to me, " You would enjoy hell better than a 

 voyage with Tobey as master." 



For ten days the Swift lay in port, hemmed in 

 by ice, and I, so near home and so unutterably 

 homesick, was not allowed to leave the ship. 

 The confined sailors, the liquor which they had 

 brought on board as a part of their outfit becom- 

 ing exhausted, determined to cut away a boat 

 and land at all hazards, but on its becoming 

 known that the mate had given orders to shoot 

 any sailor who attempted to do this, the men 

 gave up the idea. At last, fearing that longer 

 delay would mean mutiny, the captain had a 

 passage cut through the ice, and the ship cleared 

 the harbor. 



Then began that drill which transforms raw 

 sailors into experienced seamen. The first thing 

 which a newly shipped hand is required to do is 

 to learn the rigging. Every mast and spar and 



