PERSONS ON BOARD 39 



used to deliver sermons every few days from the hur- 

 ricane deck. He talked like an auctioneer, and his 

 voice was as shrill as a steam whistle. He was easily 

 induced to begin his discourses, but it was another 

 matter when once wound up to get him to stop. He 

 would continue his harangue until the passengers 

 were tired of listening, and then they would yell him 

 down. There was a pleasant little Frenchman on 

 board, named Barelli, who always accented the wrong 

 syllables, and emphasized the wrong words. He owned 

 many books, often lending them to the passengers to 

 read. He was an Australian gold-miner on his way 

 home from a pleasure trip in California. We grew 

 fast friends, and many good times we afterward had 

 together. 



Perhaps the most interesting person on board was a 

 man who every evening would assemble a knot of the 

 passengers about him and tell stories. We called him 

 by the appropriate name of Gulliver, and his supply of 

 "yarns" seemed to be inexhaustible. Though not a 

 loud talker, he knew how to point a joke or bring 

 a story to a climax in a scientific manner ; and I have 

 seen his listeners stand for hours eagerly catching every 

 word that fell from his lips. Sometimes he would 

 move his auditors almost to tears, then perhaps convulse 

 them with laughter, or hold them spell-bound with 

 expectation. The variety and style of his stories 

 marked him as having a knowledge of the world, besides 



