SKETCHES OF SEA-LIFE. 337 



Narrows. Now with beak pointing toward its destination, the 

 far-off " Land of the Gaul," it was fast speeding on to the bosom 

 of the Atlantic. But look ! Ah, woe is me ! The captain's 

 stern eye is fastened on me. " What are you figuring at there, 

 boy ? Come ! wake up, and shake the kinks out of your land 

 legs, you young sodger!" Startled by these uncivil remarks, it 

 was not long before I was moving. Now stumbling over a surly 

 tar, and again rolling with another into the u lee rigging," run- 

 ning here to help "let go a rope," and there tugging on when the 

 word was "belay," I managed to clear myself at least from the 

 imputation of inactivity. Yes, Captain How r e, savage master 

 though you were, it was the last time you ever called me "sodger," 

 that most opprobrious epithet in the sailor's vocabulary. 



The afternoon on which we left New York was occupied in 

 setting sails and getting every thing into "ship-shape" for sea. 

 Toward evening all hands were called on the quarter deck, to be 

 divided into watches. Against the "lee bulwarks" twenty rug- 

 ged, stalwart men ranged themselves; their broad, sinewy forms 

 bearing powerful testimony to the healthiness and hardihood of 

 the mariner's life ; their countenances portraying the hard marks 

 of many a winter's blast, and the swarthy hue from many a 

 scorching calm in the tropics. Come up here, all ye Blue Devils 

 and Doleful Dumps, ye Phantoms of Hypochondria, and Ghosts 

 of Consumption. Look on a sight that should shame ye for so 

 fouling the fair face of earth, and well-nigh blotting from man 

 the impress of his God. Many a time, when admiring the 

 brawny, symmetrical proportions, and the noble-hearted nature 

 of the sailor, have I vow r ed never again to make my home amid 

 the wasting ills and the niggard-souled multitude on land. Even 

 now, as I recall the familiar scenes of the few months of which 

 I am writing, there is stirring a restless spirit within me, a long- 

 ing once more for the wild life of the sea; and I cannot all repress 

 a regret for the accident which deterred me from following longer 

 my inclinations. 



Around the capstan stood four who were the "boys" of the 

 crew. The eldest of them, a " boy " of over twenty-one years of 

 age, was a relative of the captain, and .son of a New York mer- 



