YARNS OF AN OLD SEAMAN. 859 



Buffer! n 2: from an affection of the liver. I did what 

 I. could for him ; but then, as the boat would not re- 

 turn to our ship for several hours, I began to fear 

 that the time would pass tediously. My apprehen- 

 sion, however, was speedily banished by the attention 

 I found myself compelled to give to the yarns of my 

 patient, who, like all old seamen, was garrulous; 

 and, as I was a good listener, (of which I pride my- 

 self,) he\vas soon rehearsing his manifold adventures 

 from his youth upwards, embracing forty -five years of 

 sea life. He told me, that during this time he had 

 served in every situation aboard a whaler, from cabin- 

 boy to master ; and he mentioned some half-a-dozen 

 well-known whaling captains who had served their 

 novitiate in his boat. He stated, that during the 

 South American revolutions he had been privateer- 

 ing, and was for many years in both the naval and 

 merchant service. He had visited almost every 

 country of the globe to which commerce directs her 

 conve3'ances : at times (to use his own expression) 

 flush, with plenty of money ; at others, alone, with- 

 out a change of clothing, amongst semi-civilized na- 

 tions. He was a grandfather; and stated, that his 

 first wife, with whom he had lived for many years, 

 had taken umbrage at his assuming the sailor's 

 privilege of having a wife in every port, and left him. 

 After the legal forms had been gone through with, 

 she consoled herself by taking another spouse. 



Her husband, not to be a whit behind her, took 

 his ship home again, sailed to the island of New 

 Zealand, and in Mungunui married an English girl, 

 twenty years his junior. He then engaged in the 

 English whaling-service, wherein he accumulated 



