CHAPTER SIX.
THE DUTCH SAILOR'S YARN.
As for my name, it is Daal, Van Daal; and if there be any of my kinsfolkgoing about saying that they have the right to put a "Van" before theirname, and that they come of the Van Daals, who were a great family inthe seventeenth century, and one of whom was boatswain of Admiral VanTromp's flag-ship, all I can answer is that they say the thing that isnot; and that people who say such things deserve to be beaten by thebeadle all up and down the United Provinces. When I was a little boy,and went to school to the Reverend Pastor Slagkop, there was a boy namedVries--Lucas Vries--who did nothing but eat gingerbread and tell lies.Well, what became of him? He was hanged before he was thirty--hanged atthe yard-arm of a Dutch seventy-four at Batavia for piracy, mutiny, andmurder: to which shameful end he had clearly been brought by eatinggingerbread and telling fibs. Mind this, you little Dutch boys, andkeep your tongues between your teeth and your stuyvers in your pockets,when you pass the cake shops, if you wish to escape the fate of LucasVries.
And yet I dare say that--ah! so many years ago--I was as fond ofgingerbread as most yunkers of my age, and that I did not always tellthe strict truth either to my parents at home, or to the Reverend PastorSlagkop at school (he was a red-headed man who always hit you with hisleft hand, and he had but one eye, which glared viciously upon you whilehe beat you). But now that I am old, it is clear that I have a right togive good advice to the young: even to the warning them not to be guiltyof the transgressions of which I may have been guilty ever so many yearsago; because I have seen so much of the world, and have passed throughso many dangers and trials, and have _not_ been hanged. And this hasalways been my motto. When you are young, practise just as much or aslittle as you are able; but never forget to preach, whenever you can getanybody to listen to you. To yourself, you may do no good; but you maybe, often, of considerable service to other people. A guide-post on thedyke of a canal is of some use, although it never goes to the place theway to which it points out.
That which is now the Kingdom of the Netherlands (Heaven preserve theKing thereof, and the Crown Prince, and all their wives and families,and may they live long and prosper: such is the hope of Jan Daal, whodrinks all their good healths in a tumbler of Schiedam) was in old timesknown (as you ought to be well aware, little boys) as the Republic, ofthe United Provinces; and there was no King--only a kind of ornamentalfigurehead, not very richly gilt, who was a Prince of the House ofOrange, and was called the Stadtholder: the real governors andadministrators of the Confederation being certain grand gentlemen calledTheir High Mightinesses. And very high and mighty airs did they givethemselves; and very long robes, and very large periwigs, as flowing asa ship's mainsail, did they wear, so I have heard my old father say manya time, ever so many years ago. Mynheer Van Bloomersdaal, in his"Pictures of the Glories of Holland"--how I hated that book when I hadto learn a page of it, every day, by heart, and how I love it, now thatnobody can compel me to remember even a line of it; but I do so for myown pleasure,--Mynheer Van Bloomersdaal, I say, has told us that theUnited Provinces are seven in number, and consist of Holland Proper,with Gueldres, Zealand, Friesland, Utrecht, Groningen, and Over-Yssel.By the deep, seven. Always be sure that you are right in yoursoundings; and take care to put fresh tallow in your lead, to make surewhat bottom you are steering to.
I think that I must have been born some time toward the end of the lastcentury, or the beginning of the present one, in the great city ofAmsterdam, which, after all, has the greatest right to be called thecapital of Holland; for The Hague, where the King lives and the Chambersmeet, is, though a mighty fine place, only a big village, and a villageis not a city any more than a treykschuyt is a three-decker, or aboatswain an admiral. At the same time, mind you, if I was put on myoath before a court-martial, I would not undertake to swear that I maynot have been born at Rotterdam, at Dordrecht, at Leyden, at Delft, oreven at The Hague itself; for, you see, my father was a peddler, and wascontinually wandering up and down the country (or rather the canals, forhe mostly travelled by treykschuyt), selling all kinds of small mattersto whomsoever would buy, that he might keep his wife and small childrenin bread, cheese, and salt herrings: which were pretty well all we hadto live upon. But what does it matter where a fellow was born? Thegreat thing is to be born at all, and to take care to keep your watch,and to turn cheerfully out of your bunk when the hands are turned up toreef topsails in a gale.
I know that, when I first began to remember anything, we were living inthe city of Amsterdam, and in the very middle of the Jews' quarter,which I shall always bear in mind as having five distinct and permanentsmells--one of tobacco, one of Schiedam, one of red herrings, one ofbilge-water, one of cheese, and one of Jews. At Cologne, on the Rhine,they say there are seventy smells, all as distinct from one another asthe different ropes of a ship; but I have not travelled much on theRhine, and know much more about Canton than of Cologne. Although welived among the Jews, my father was no Israelite:--far from it. He wasa good Protestant of the Calvinistic persuasion; and, in the way ofbusiness, sold many footwarmers (little boxes of wood and wire, to holdcharcoal embers), for the churches. He chose to live among the Jews,because their quarter was a cheap one; and he could pick up the thingshe wanted more easily there than anywhere else; and, besides, Jews, forall the hard things that may be said about them, are not a bad sort ofpeople to do business with. They are hard upon sailors, it is true, inthe way of cheating them; yet they will always let a poor tar have alittle money when he wants any; and they are always good for a bite ofbiscuit, a cut of salt junk, and a rummer of Schiedam. I wish I couldsay the same of all the Christians I could name, who are by no means badhands at cheating you, and then turn you out of doors, hungry andthirsty, and without a shoe to your foot. I don't say that a Jew won'tswindle you out of your shoes, and your stockings, too, in the way ofbusiness; but he will always give you credit for a new set of slops, andthis I have often said to our pursers aboard. Note this: that pursersare the biggest thieves that ever deserved to be flogged, pickled,tarred, keel-hauled, and then hanged.
I had six brothers and sisters--so we might have called ourselves theSeven United Daals if we had had the wit to do so. There was Adrian,the eldest. He was a clever yunker, and was bound 'prentice to aclock-maker. He went to England, and I have sometimes heard made agreat deal of money there; but he never sent us any of it--and what isthe good of having a rich brother if he doesn't let you share in his payand prize-money? My messmates always shared in my rhino when I had any;and if your brother is not your messmate I should like to know who is.Another of my brothers, too, the second, Hendrik by name, did very wellin life; for being very quick at figures and ready with his pen, old MrJacob Jacobson, the Israelitish money-changer, took a fancy to him andmade him his clerk. He went away when he grew up, and for many longyears I heard nothing about him; but it chanced once that, being at NewYork, to which port I had shipped from Macao, I had a draft for ahundred and fifty dollars to get cashed; and the draft was on a firm ofbankers who had their shop down by the Bowling Green, by the name of VanDaal, Peanut, and McCute. The "Daal" struck me for a moment; but seeingthe "Van" before it I concluded that the name could not belong to any ofmy folk, and took no more notice of it. I presented my bit of writingat the counter, and the paymaster's clerk--a chap with a copper shovelin his flipper, as if he kept gold and silver by the shovelful in thehold--he gives me back the pay-note, and he says, "Sign your name here,my man." So I sign my name "Jan Daal, mariner." So he takes it into alittle caboose behind the counter; and by-and-by out comes a short fatman with big whiskers, dressed as fine as a supercargo going out todinner with his owner, and with a great watch-chain and seals, and hisfingers all over diamond rings. "You have an odd name, my friend," hesays, looking at me very hard. "It is Jan Daal," I says, "and it isthat which was given to me at the church font." He reddened a little atthis, and goes on, "What church?" "Saint Niklas," I reply, "in the goodcity of Amsterdam, so I have heard
my mother (rest her soul) say." "AndI, too," he begins again, reddening more than ever, "was christened atthe Oude Sant Niklas Kerke; and I am of the Daals of Amsterdam, and I amyour brother Hendrik." On this he embraced me; and I went along withhim to the caboose behind the shop; and he gave me crackers and cheese,and a dram of Schiedam, and a pipe of tobacco to smoke. We had a longtalk about old times, and he told me how well he had got on in theworld, and what great bankers he and his partners, Peanut and McCute(one a Scotchman, t'other a Yankee, and both a match for all theJacobsons that ever cheated you out of ten stuyvers in the guilder)were; but when I told him that I had met with no very great luck inlife, and that the hundred and fifty dollars I was going to draw was allthe money I had in the world, he did not seem quite so fond of me asbefore. "And what do you call yourself Van Daal, brother of mine, for,"says I. "It's not fair sailing. There are no more Vans in our familythan in a brood of Mother Cary's chickens." At this he looks very highand mighty, and talks about different positions in society, and industryand integrity, and all the rest of it. "If that's the course you meanto steer, brother," says I, "I wish you the middle of the stream, and aclear course, and a very good morning; only take you good care that youdon't run foul of some bigger craft than yourself that's really calledVan, and will run you down and send you to the bottom with all hands."I was always a crusty old fellow, I dare say; but I like neither shipsnor skippers that give themselves names that don't belong to them. If aship's name is the _Mary Jane_, let her sail as the _Mary Jane_, and notas the _Highflier_. If she changes her name, ten to one there'ssomething the matter with her. So I went back to the office, and says Ito the clerk, "Now, old Nipcheese,"--I called him "Nipcheese," for helooked like a kind of purser--"I want my hundred and fifty dollars--andthat's what's the matter with me!" He paid me, looking as sour aslime-juice that has been kept too long, and deducting (the stingy oldscrew!) four and a half per cent, for "commission;" and I went away, andspent my money like a gentleman, mostly in the grog-shops down byGreenwich Street. You may be sure that when it was all gone I didn't gofor any more to my high and mighty brother, Mynheer Van Daal. No, no; Iwent down to the wharf, and shipped on board a brigantine bound for NewOrleans. I heard afterward that my brother the banker, with hismessmates, Peanut the Yankee and McCute the Scotchman, all went to DavyJones's locker--that is to say, they were bankrupt, and paid nobody.Now, I should like to know which of us was in the right? If Isquandered my hundred and fifty dollars (less the four and a half percent, for commission--and be hanged to that mouldy old Nipcheese, withhis copper shovel!), it was, at least, my own cash, and I had workedhard for it; but here were my fine banker-brother and his partners, whogo and spend a lot of money--more than I ever heard of--that belonged toother people!
I was the third son. There was a fourth, called Cornelius, but he diedwhen he was a baby. Then came three girls--Betje, Lotje, and Barbet.Lotje was a steady girl, who married a ship chandler at Rotterdam. Hedied poor, however, and left her with a lot of children. I am very fondof the yunkers, and try to be as kind to them (although I am such acrusty old fellow) as I can. Betje was a pretty girl, but too flighty,and a great deal too fond of dancing at kermesses. She died before shewas eighteen of a consumption which was brought on, I fancy, more by hergoing out in silk stockings and thin shoes to dance at a kermesse at theLoost Gardens of the Three Herrings at Scheveningen, than by anythingelse. For ours is a damp country, where there is more mud than solidearth, and more water than either; and you should take care to go asthickly shod as you can. But in winter time all is hard and firm; andwith a good pair of skates to your heels, a good pipe of tobacco in yourmouth (though I like a quid better), and a good flask of Schiedam inyour pocket, there's no fear of your catching cold. Unfortunately, mypoor Lotje could not smoke, and liked sweetmeats better than schnapps;and so, with the aid of those confounded silk stockings anddancing-pumps, she must needs die, and be buried in the graveyard of theOude Sant Niklas Kerke. It nearly broke my poor mother's heart, and myfather's, too; although he was somewhat of a hard man, whose heart tooka good deal of breaking. But now that I am an old, old man, I oftenthink over my pipe (I smoke at night instead of chewing) and my grog,about pretty Lotje, with her fair hair curled up under a scalp of giltplating, and her great blue eyes,--of her plump white arms, and her trimlittle feet, which she was all too fond, poor lass! of rigging up insilk stockings and pumps. But I should never have a word to say againstkermesses, quotha! for I must, in time, have danced away some thousandsof dollars to the sound of a fiddle, and with a buxom jungvrauw for mypartner, in pretty nearly all the grog-shops at pretty nearly every porton the map. For it was always my motto that when a man's heels feellight he should forthwith begin to foot it in a hornpipe; and when hefeels thirsty, and has any rhino in his looker, he should pipe all handsfor grog. This, the wiseacres will tell me, is the way to ruin one'shealth, and die poor; but I am very old, and if I had any riches Icouldn't take them away with me to Fiddler's Green, could I? Say!
My youngest sister, Barbet, was not pretty, but she was very kind, andgood, and quiet, and although she had been brought up in the verystrictest principles of Protestantism (that is to say, she used to get asound whipping, as all of us did, if she went to sleep in church orforgot the text of the sermon), she took it into her head, when she grewup, to turn Romanist, and became a nun. She went away to a convent atLille, in French Flanders (which, like Belgium, ought to belong to theDutch), and we heard no more of her--only once, many years ago--when,for once in my life, I had made a little noise in the world by savingsome poor fellow from drowning in a shipwreck, which led to the Ministerof Marine sending me a gold medal and a purse full of guilders, and myname being published in the printed logs--I mean the newspapers--my poorsister Barbet (she had changed her name to Sister Veronica, I think, butthat is all ship-shape in a nunnery) sent me a beautiful letter, sayingthat she always prayed for me, and enclosing me a pretty little image ofSant Niklas, worked in coloured wools, on a bit of canvas. I was gladto hear from my sister Barbet, and to hear that Oude Sant Niklas was aCatholic as well as a Protestant saint (as a good ship, you see, is astight a craft under one flag as under another); and I wore the image,and wear it now, next my heart, as a charm against drowning, instead ofthe child's caul which I bought when I was young in High Street,Wapping, England. It cost me ten pounds, but the dealer took it outhalf in "swop;" that is to say, I gave him two pounds in silver, twoSpanish doubloons, a five-pound note, a green parrot, that swore quitebeautifully, a coral necklace, and a lot of uncut jewels, I picked up inthe Black Town at Calcutta, and that must have come to about the valueof ten pounds, I reckon.
[It would seem that the dealer in High Street, Wapping, got slightly thebetter of honest Jan Daal in this transaction. But business isbusiness. Ed.]
You may wonder, when I have told you of the humble way of business inwhich my father was, of the number of yunkers he had to keep, and allout of the slender profits of a peddler's pack, and of the poor way welived, that we went to church, or to school, at all. But my dad was ahighly respectable man, who never drank more schnapps than was good forhim, except when he had the ague, which was about once every spring andautumn, and once in the winter, with, perhaps, a touch of it in themiddle of the summer; and my mother was a notable housewife, whoscrubbed her three rooms and her seven children, her pots and pans, andher chairs and tables, all day, and, on Saturdays, nearly all night,long. It is fortunate for such things as pots and pans, and chairs andtables, that they haven't any human feelings--at least, I never _heard_a table talk, although I have read in the newspapers of their spinningprecious long yarns for fools and madmen to listen to (but what can youexpect from newspapers but lies?)--or they would have squalled forcertain, as we used to do under our mother's never-ending scrubbing andscouring. When the soap got into our eyes, we used to halloa, and thenshe used to dry our tears with a rough towel--I mean a towel made of abunch of twigs, tied together at one end with some string. My motherwa
s the most excellent woman that ever lived; but she had a strange ideain her head that all children wanted physic, and that the very bastdoctor's stuff in the world was a birch rod, and plenty of it. Perhapsmy physickings did me no harm; at least, they prepared me for theprecious allowances of kicks, cuffs, and ropes-endings I got when I wentto sea.
I went to sea, because, when I was about ten years old, my fatherthought that I had had enough schooling. _I_ thought that I had hadenough to last me for a lifetime; for the Reverend Pastor Slagkop had amonstrous heavy hand; but at least he had taught me to read and write,and to cast accounts--and that it was about time for me to set aboutearning my own livelihood, which my elder brothers were already doing.I was quite of his way of thinking, for I was a hard-working boy, andwas tired of eating the bread of idleness; only my dad and I didn'texactly agree as to the precise manner by which I should earn a living.He wanted me to wander with him, mostly by treykschuyt, or canal-boat,up and down the United Provinces, helping him to carry his pack, andtrying to sell the clocks, watches, cutlery, spoons, hats, caps, laces,stockings, gloves, and garters, in which, and a hundred things besides,he traded. But I didn't like the peddler business. I was never a goodhand at making a bargain, and when I had to sell things, I was just asbad a salesman. I let the customers beat me down; and then my father,who was a just man, but dreadfully severe, beat _me_. Besides, to makea good peddler, you must tell no end of lies, and the telling of lies(although sailors are often said to spin yarns as tough as the chairsand tables pretend to do) was never in my line. Again, although I wasof a roving disposition, and delighted in change, my native country hadno charms for me. At the seaports, where there were big ships, I was aspleased as Punch; but, inland, the country seemed to me to be always thesame--flat, marshy, and stupid, with the same canals, the samecanal-boats, the same windmills, the same cows, the same farmhouses, thesame church steeples, the same dykes, the same dams, and the same peoplesmoking the same pipes, or sliding to market in winter time, when thecanals were frozen, on the same skates. To make an end of it, apeddler's life was to me only one degree above that of a beggar; for youhad to be always asking somebody to buy your goods; and I have alwayshated to ask favours of people. I told my father so; but he would nothear of my turning to any trade, and there being no help for it, I hadto help him at peddlering for a good two years, although I fancy that helost more money than he gained by my lending him a hand. But, when Iwas twelve years of age, and feeling stouter and stronger--and I wastaller for my age than most Dutch boys are--I told my father flatly thatI had had enough of peddlering, and that if he did not let me try tofind some other calling, I would run away. He told me, for anungrateful young hound as I was, that I might run away to Old Nick if Ichose--not the Sant Niklas of the Oude Kerke, but a very different kindof customer. "Thank you, father," said I, beginning to tie up my fewthings in a bundle. "Stop," says he. "Here's five guilders for you. Idon't want you to starve for the first few days, while you are seekingfor work, graceless young calf as you are!"--"Thank you, father, again,"I says, pocketing both the guilders and the compliment. "And stopagain, my man," he says; "and take this along with you, with myblessing, for your impudence!" With this, he seizes me by the collar,gets my head between his legs, and, with the big leathern strap he usedto bind his pack with, he gives me the soundest thrashing I ever had inmy life. That's the way to harden boys! It was in the middle ofJanuary, and pretty sharp weather, when we had this explanation. It wasat our home at Amsterdam; and my good mother sat crying bitterly in acorner, with my little sisters clinging to her, and squalling; but as Iwalked out of the house forever, I felt as hot all through me as thoughit had been the middle of July.
I walked from Amsterdam to Rotterdam steadily, bent upon going to sea.Of course, I had never as yet made a voyage, even in a fishing-boat; butI had been up and down all the canals in Holland ever since I was achild; and I fancied that the ocean was only a very large canal, andthat a sea-going ship was only a very big treykschuyt. In a large portlike Rotterdam I thought that there would be no difficulty in finding acraft, the skipper of which would give me a berth aboard; and, indeed,throughout a very long life I have usually found that it does not mattera stuyver how poor, ignorant, and friendless a boy may be, there isalways room for him at sea, if he sets his mind steadily on finding aship. Mind, I don't say that he won't be the better sailor for thebook-learning he may have been lucky enough to pick up. I neverdespised book-learning, although no great scholar myself; but a boyshould learn to use his hands as well as his eyes. He should have atrade, never mind what it is; but it must be a trade that he can earnpay, and lay a little prize-money by, now and then; and a scholarwithout a trade is but a poor fellow. He may turn parson, orschoolmaster, to be sure; but it would be a mighty queer ship, I reckon,aboard which the captain was a parson, and the bo'sun a schoolmaster,and the crew a pack of loblolly-boys, with their brains full ofbook-learning, and nothing else.
I wasn't so very quick, though, as I thought, in my boyish foolishness,that I should be, in finding a ship at Rotterdam. Indeed, when I gotdown to the Boompjes, and boarded the craft lying at anchor there, Ithink I must have tried five-and-twenty before I could find a skipperwho would as much as look at me, much less offer me a berth. "If youplease, do you want a boy?" was my invariable question. Some of theskippers said that they had more boys than they knew what to do with;others, that boys were more trouble than they were worth, which worthdid not amount to the salt they ate. Off the poop of one ship I waskicked by a skipper, who had had too much Schiedam for breakfast; fromthe gangway of another I was shoved ashore by a quartermaster, whodidn't like boys; one bo'sun's mate gave me a starting with arope's-end, as he swore that I had come aboard to steal something; andanother pulled my ears quite good-naturedly (although he made my earsvery sore), and told me to go back to school, and mind my book, and thata sailor's life was too rough for me. There was one captain--he was inthe China trade--who said that he would take me as a 'prentice if myfather would pay a hundred and fifty guilders for my indentures; andanother, who offered to ship me as cook's mate; but I knew nothing aboutcooking, and had to tell him so, with tears in my eyes. I was nearlyreduced to despair, when one skipper--he was only the master of agalliot, trading between Rotterdam and Yarmouth, in England--seeing thatI was a stout, bright-eyed lad, likely to be a strong haul on a rope,and a good hand at a winch or a windlass, told me that he would take meon first for one voyage, and see what wages I was worth when we cameback again. He advanced me a guilder or two, to buy some sea-goingthings; so that, with the trifle my father had given me, when hedismissed me with his blessing and a thrashing, I did not go to seaabsolutely penniless.
I have been at sea sixty years; yet well do I recollect the first daythat I shipped on board the galliot _Jungvrauw_, at Rotterdam, bound forGreat Yarmouth, England. When I got on board the vessel was justwearing out of port, and, thinking that about the best thing I could dowas to begin to make myself useful at once, I tailed on to a rope thatsome of the crew were hauling in; and the next thing I began to learnwas to coil a rope. There's only two ways to do it--a right one and awrong one. The right way is to coil it the way the sun goes round. Andthen I learned that about the surest manner in which a young sailor canget a knowledge of his trade is to watch how his shipmates set aboutdoing their work. He may be laughed at, grumbled at, or sworn at, butat last he'll learn his duty, and that's something.
If I were to tell you all the wonderful things that have happened to me,man and boy, as carpenter, bo'sun, third mate, second mate, and firstmate--I never had the luck to rise to be a skipper--I am afraid that youwouldn't believe half the yarns I could spin for you. I've been in boththe Indies, and in both the Americas, and in our own Dutch Colony ofJava, and in China and Japan (where the Dutch used to have a mighty finefactory) over and over again. I've been in action; and was wounded onceby a musket-ball, which passed right through the nape of my neck. I'vebeen a prisoner of war, and I was once nearly ta
ken by a Sallee rover.I've had to fight with the Dutch for the French, and with the Frenchagainst the Dutch, and with the Dutch for the English. I've had theyellow fever over and over again. I've had my leg half bitten off by ashark; and if anybody tells you that a shark won't eat niggers, tellhim, with my compliments, that he doesn't know what he's talking about,for I saw a shark bite a nigger that had fallen overboard, right in two,in the harbour of Havana. I don't say that the shark doesn't like whiteflesh best. The black man, perhaps, he locks upon as mess beef, notvery prime; but the white man he considers as pork or veal, and thenicer of the two. At all events he'll eat nigger if he's hungry, and ashark's always hungry.
Perhaps the strangest thing that ever happened to me in the coarse ofall my voyages was in connection with a lot of swallows, and I'll windup my yarn with this one, first because it's short, and next because Ithink it's got something that's pretty about it, and will please theyunkers and the vrauws; and, old man-like, I always like to please_them_. It was about thirty years ago, and in the middle of September,that I signed articles at Liverpool as second mate of a brig bound toMarseilles, Barcelona, in Spain, Gibraltar (_that_ belongs to theEnglanders), Oran, and Algiers. The middle of September mind. The nameof the brig was the _Granite_, and the skipper, Captain Marbles, aYorkshireman, was about the hardest commander I ever sailed under. Henever swore at the men,--that they wouldn't have much minded; but he wasalways turning up the hands for punishment; and punishment in themerchant service, thirty years ago, was little less severe than it wasin the navy. Indeed, it was often more unjust, and more cruel; for whena merchant skipper flogged a man he was generally drunk, or in afearfully bad temper; whereas on board a man-o'-war a sailor was neverpunished in cold blood, and had at least some show of a trial. I mustdo Captain Marbles the credit to say that he was never half seas over;but on the other hand he was always in a bad temper. On me he dared notlay a finger, for I was an officer, and I would have knocked him downwith a marlinspike had he struck me; but he led the foremast-men and theboys, of whom we had at least half a dozen aboard--principally, I fancy,because the Captain liked to torture boys--a terrible life. Well, wehad discharged cargo at Marseilles, and taken in more at Barcelona. Wehad put in at Gibraltar, and after clearing out from the Rock wereshaping our course with a pretty fair wind for Gran, when, one evening--now what in the world do you think happened?
The swallow, you know, is a bird that, like our stork, cannot abide thecold. He is glad enough to come and see us in summer, when the leavesare green, and the sun shines brightly; but so soon as ever the weatherbegins to grow chilly, off goes Mr Swallow to the Pyramids of Egypt, orthe Desert of Sahara, or some nice, warm, comfortable place of thatkind. He generally arrives in our latitudes about the second week inApril; and he cuts his stick again for hot winter quarters toward theend of September. I've heard book-learned gentlemen say that the birdsalmost always fly in a line, directly north and south, influenced, nodoubt, by the magnetic current which flows forever and ever in thatdirection. Well, on the afternoon to which my yarn relates, our coursewas due south, and, just before sunset, we saw a vast space of the skyastern absolutely darkened by the largest flight of birds I ever saw,winging their way together. As a rule, I've been told, the swallowsdon't migrate in large flocks, but in small families. This, however,must have been an exception to the rule, for they appeared absolutely tonumber thousands; and what should they do when they neared us but settledown in their thousands on the masts and rigging of the brig _Granite_.They were tired, poor things, no doubt, with long flying; and I havebeen told that it is a common custom for them to rest themselves on theriggings of ships. But there were so many of them this time that thevery deck was covered with them, and vast numbers more fluttered below,into the forecastle and the captain's cabin. The skipper ordered thehatches to be battened down, and all was made snug for the night. Inthe morning the birds on the deck and the rigging were gone, but we hadstill hundreds of swallows in the hold and in the cabin, and the noisethe poor creatures made to be let out was most pitiable--indeed, it wassimply heartrending. It was like the cry of children. It sounded like,"For God's sake, let us go free!" Captain Marbles--I have said sobefore--was a hard man, but he could not stand the agonised twitteringof the wretched little birds; and as he ordered me to have the hatchesopened, I noticed that there were two great tears coursing down hisstern, weather-beaten cheeks. He had, for the first time in his life,perhaps, become acquainted with a certain blessed thing called PITY.Nor did we fail to notice afterward that he was not half so hard on theboys we had aboard. Perhaps he remembered the cry of the swallows.
That's my yarn. There's nothing very grand about it; but, at least,it's true. As true, I mean, as old sailors' yarns usually are.
"Gone!" cried the doctor, as the Dutchman, a minute before solid inappearance, suddenly collapsed into air and moisture, which directlybecame ice. "If I hadn't been so polite I might have stopped him. Isuppose the effort of telling their histories exhausts them."
"Well, sir, it's jolly interesting!" said Bostock.
"Yes, my man," said the doctor; "but there's no science in it. What isthere in his talk about how he came here, or for me to report to thelearned societies?"
"Can't say, I'm sure, sir," I said; "only, the discoveries."
"Yes, that will do, Captain. But come, let's find another?"
We all set to eagerly, for the men now thoroughly enjoyed the task. Thestories we heard enlivened the tedium, and the men, far from beingafraid now, went heartily into the search.
"Shouldn't wonder if we found a nigger friz-up here, mates," said BinnyScudds.
"Or a Chine-hee," said one of the men.
"Well, all I can say," exclaimed Bostock, "is this here, _I_ don't wantto be made into a scientific speciment."
"Here y'are!" shouted one of the men. "Here's one on 'em!"
"Get out!" said Binny Scudds, who had run to the face of a perpendicularmass of ice, where the man stood with his pick. "That ain't one!"
"Tell yer it is," said the man. "That's the 'airs of his 'ead stickingout;" and he pointed to what appeared to be dark threads in the white,opaque ice.
"Tell you, he wouldn't be standing up," said Binny Scudds.
"Why not, if he was frozen so, my men?" said the doctor. "Yes; that's aspecimen. This ice has been heaved up."
"Shall we fetch him out with powder," said Bostock.
"Dear me, no!" said the doctor. "Look! that ice is laminated. Trydriving in wedges."
Three of the men climbed onto the top, and began driving in wedges, whenthe ice split open evenly, leaving the figure of what appeared to be aswarthy-looking Frenchman, exposed as to the face; but he was held intightly to the lower half of the icy case, by his long hair.
"Blest if he don't look jest like a walnut with one shell off!" growledScudds; but he was silent directly, for the Frenchman opened his eyes,stared at us, smiled, and opened his lips.
"Yes; thank you much, comrades. You have saved me. I did not thusexpect, when we went drift, drift, drift north, in the little vessel,with the rats; but listen, you shall hear. I am a man of wonderfuladventure. You take me for a ghost?"
Bostock nodded.
"Brave lads! brave lads!" said the Frenchman; "but it is not that I am.I have been taken for a ghost before, and prove to my good friends thatI am not. I prove to you I am not; but a good, sound, safe, French_matelot_!--sailor, you call it."
"I should like to hear you," said Binny Scudds, in a hoarse growl.
"You shall, my friend, who has helped to save me."
"Let it be scientific, my friend," said the doctor.
"It shall, sir--it shall," said the Frenchman.
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