CHAPTER XLI
A MAN-OF-WAR LIBRARY
Nowhere does time pass more heavily than with most men-of-war's-men on board their craft in harbour.
One of my principal antidotes against _ennui_ in Rio, was reading. There was a public library on board, paid for by government, and intrusted to the custody of one of the marine corporals, a little, dried-up man, of a somewhat literary turn. He had once been a clerk in a post-office ashore; and, having been long accustomed to hand over letters when called for, he was now just the man to hand over books. He kept them in a large cask on the berth-deck, and, when seeking a particular volume, had to capsize it like a barrel of potatoes. This made him very cross and irritable, as most all librarians are. Who had the selection of these books, I do not know, but some of them must have been selected by our Chaplain, who so pranced on Coleridge's "_High German horse_."
Mason Good's Book of Nature-a very good book, to be sure, but not precisely adapted to tarry tastes-was one of these volumes; and Machiavel's Art of War-which was very dry fighting; and a folio of Tillotson's Sermons-the best of reading for divines, indeed, but with little relish for a main-top-man; and Locke's Essays-incomparable essays, everybody knows, but miserable reading at sea; and Plutarch's Lives-super-excellent biographies, which pit Greek against Roman in beautiful style, but then, in a sailor's estimation, not to be mentioned with the _Lives of the Admirals_; and Blair's Lectures, University Edition-a fine treatise on rhetoric, but having nothing to say about nautical phrases, such as "_splicing the main-brace_," "_passing a gammoning_," "_puddinging the dolphin_," and "_making a Carrick-bend_;" besides numerous invaluable but unreadable tomes, that might have been purchased cheap at the auction of some college-professor's library.
But I found ample entertainment in a few choice old authors, whom I stumbled upon in various parts of the ship, among the inferior officers. One was "_Morgan's History of Algiers_," a famous old quarto, abounding in picturesque narratives of corsairs, captives, dungeons, and sea-fights; and making mention of a cruel old Dey, who, toward the latter part of his life, was so filled with remorse for his cruelties and crimes that he could not stay in bed after four o'clock in the morning, but had to rise in great trepidation and walk off his bad feelings till breakfast time. And another venerable octavo, containing a certificate from Sir Christopher Wren to its authenticity, entitled "_Knox's Captivity in Ceylon, 1681_"-abounding in stories about the Devil, who was superstitiously supposed to tyrannise over that unfortunate land: to mollify him, the priests offered up buttermilk, red cocks, and sausages; and the Devil ran roaring about in the woods, frightening travellers out of their wits; insomuch that the Islanders bitterly lamented to Knox that their country was full of devils, and consequently, there was no hope for their eventual well-being. Knox swears that he himself heard the Devil roar, though he did not see his horns; it was a terrible noise, he says, like the baying of a hungry mastiff.
Then there was Walpole's Letters-very witty, pert, and polite- and some odd volumes of plays, each of which was a precious casket of jewels of good things, shaming the trash nowadays passed off for dramas, containing "The Jew of Malta," "Old Fortunatus," "The City Madam." "Volpone," "The Alchymist," and other glorious old dramas of the age of Marlow and Jonson, and that literary Damon and Pythias, the magnificent, mellow old Beaumont and Fletcher, who have sent the long shadow of their reputation, side by side with Shakspeare's, far down the endless vale of posterity. And may that shadow never be less! but as for St. Shakspeare may his never be more, lest the commentators arise, and settling upon his sacred text like unto locusts, devour it clean up, leaving never a dot over an I.
I diversified this reading of mine, by borrowing Moore's "_Loves of the Angels_" from Rose-water, who recommended it as "_de charmingest of volumes;_" and a Negro Song-book, containing _Sittin' on a Rail_, _Gumbo Squash_, and _Jim along Josey_, from Broadbit, a sheet-anchor-man. The sad taste of this old tar, in admiring such vulgar stuff, was much denounced by Rose-water, whose own predilections were of a more elegant nature, as evinced by his exalted opinion of the literary merits of the "_Loves of the Angels_."
I was by no means the only reader of books on board the Neversink. Several other sailors were diligent readers, though their studies did not lie in the way of belles-lettres. Their favourite authors were such as you may find at the book-stalls around Fulton Market; they were slightly physiological in their nature. My book experiences on board of the frigate proved an example of a fact which every book-lover must have experienced before me, namely, that though public libraries have an imposing air, and doubtless contain invaluable volumes, yet, somehow, the books that prove most agreeable, grateful, and companionable, are those we pick up by chance here and there; those which seem put into our hands by Providence; those which pretend to little, but abound in much.
CHAPTER XLII
KILLLNG TIME IN A MAN-OF-WAR IN HARBOUR
Reading was by no means the only method adopted by my shipmates in whiling away the long, tedious hours in harbour. In truth, many of them could not have read, had they wanted to ever so much; in early youth their primers had been sadly neglected. Still, they had other pursuits; some were experts at the needle, and employed their time in making elaborate shirts, stitching picturesque eagles, and anchors, and all the stars of the federated states in the collars thereof; so that when they at last completed and put on these shirts, they may be said to have hoisted the American colors.
Others excelled in _tattooing_ or _pricking_, as it is called in a man-of-war. Of these prickers, two had long been celebrated, in their way, as consummate masters of the art. Each had a small box full of tools and colouring matter; and they charged so high for their services, that at the end of the cruise they were supposed to have cleared upward of four hundred dollars. They would _prick_ you to order a palm-tree, or an anchor, a crucifix, a lady, a lion, an eagle, or anything else you might want.
The Roman Catholic sailors on board had at least the crucifix pricked on their arms, and for this reason: If they chanced to die in a Catholic land, they would be sure of a decent burial in consecrated ground, as the priest would be sure to observe the symbol of Mother Church on their persons. They would not fare as Protestant sailors dying in Callao, who are shoved under the sands of St. Lorenzo, a solitary, volcanic island in the harbour, overrun with rep-tiles, their heretical bodies not being permitted to repose in the more genial loam of Lima.
And many sailors not Catholics were anxious to have the crucifix painted on them, owing to a curious superstition of theirs. They affirm-some of them-that if you have that mark tattooed upon all four limbs, you might fall overboard among seven hundred and seventy-five thousand white sharks, all dinnerless, and not one of them would so much as dare to smell at your little finger.
We had one fore-top-man on board, who, during the entire cruise, was having an endless cable _pricked_ round and round his waist, so that, when his frock was off, he looked like a capstan with a hawser coiled round about it. This fore-top-man paid eighteen pence per link for the cable, besides being on the smart the whole cruise, suffering the effects of his repeated puncturings; so he paid very dear for his cable.
One other mode of passing time while in port was cleaning and polishing your _bright-work_; for it must be known that, in men- of-war, every sailor has some brass or steel of one kind or other to keep in high order-like housemaids, whose business it is to keep well-polished the knobs on the front door railing and the parlour-grates.