52 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY chap, iv 



be patient, and listen to what I have to say; you will then, per- 

 haps, be a little more content with your lot in life, and a little 

 less desirous of mine. Of all extant lives, that on board a ship- 

 of-war is the most artificial— whether necessarily so or not is a 

 question I will not undertake to decide ; but the fact is indubi- 

 table. ■ 



How utterly disgusted you get with one another ! Little 

 peculiarities which would give a certain charm and variety to 

 social intercourse under any other circumstances, become 

 sources of absolute pain, and almost uncontrollable irritation, 

 when you are shut up with them day and night. One good 

 friend and messmate of mine has a peculiar laugh, whose itera- 

 tion on our last cruise nearly drove me insane. 



There is no being alone in a ship. Sailors are essentially 

 gregarious animals, and don't at all understand the necessity 

 under which many people labour — I among the rest — of having 

 a little solitary converse with oneself occasionally. 



Then, to a landsman fresh from ordinary society and its 

 peculiarly undemonstrative ways, there is something very won- 

 derful about naval discipHne. I do not mean to say that the 

 subordination kept up is more than is necessary, nor perhaps is 

 it in reality greater than is to be found in a college, or a regi- 

 ment, or a large mercantile house ; but it is made so very ob- 

 vious. You not only feel the bit, but you see it; and your 

 bridle is hung with bells to tell you of its presence. 



Your captain is a very different person, in relation to his 

 officers, from the colonel of a regiment; he is a demi-god, a 

 Dalai lama, living in solitary state ; sublime, unapproachable ; 

 and the radiation of his dignity stretches through all the other 

 members of the nautical hierarchy; hence all sorts of petty 

 intrigues, disputes, grumblings, and jealousies, which, to the 

 irreverent eye of an " idler," give to the whole little society 

 the aspect of nothing so much as the court of Prinz Irenaeus in 

 Kater Murr's inestimable autobiography. 



P. 107 sq. : 



After describing the illusory promises of the Admiralty 

 and their grudging spirit towards the scientific members of 

 the expedition, he continues : — 



These are the facilities and encouragement to science 

 afforded by the Admiralty; and it cannot be wondered at if 

 the same spirit runs through its subordinate officers. 



