INTO PORT. 377 



our crew tell at once hei name, if she is known 

 to them, or if entirely unknown, at any rate hei 

 hailing place. 



After dressing, we Bait our catch. This is sorry 

 work for sore fingers, hands, and arms, of which, 

 after a day's work like the present, there is alwaya 

 a plentiful supply, mackereling being under any 

 circumstances a business in which sores of all kinds 

 on hands and feet are singularly plenty and hard 

 to get rid of. But salting does not last forever, 

 and the few preparations for going into harbor 

 being already completed, we gather together, as 

 dusk comes on, in little knots about the deck, dis- 

 cuss the day's work, point out familiar vessels, and 

 argue on their various sailing qualities, and once 

 in a while slily peep down the " companion-way " 

 into the snug little cabin, where the "ram-cat" 

 (the sailors' name for a cabin stove) glows so 

 brightly, and every thing looks so comfortable, 

 and in particular so dry, that our hearts yearn for 

 a place, by the fire. Landsmen, poor fellows, have 

 no idea how great an amount of real, unmistakable 

 comfort may be contained in a little box eight feet 

 by twelve, with a table in the middle, seats and 

 berths at the sides, a stove and hatchway at one 

 end, a row of shelves and a box-cornpass at the 

 other and a skylight over head, the whole smell- 

 irg villainously of decayed fish and bilge-water. 

 Happily for mankind, all happiness is compara- 

 tive, else would not the dirty, confined cabin of a 

 fisherman eve/ 1 be considered a very Elysium of 



