Omoo | Page 5

aboard. The four
boats hanging from her sides proclaimed her a whaler. Leaning
carelessly over the bulwarks were the sailors, wild, haggard-looking
fellows in Scotch caps and faded blue frocks; some of them with
cheeks of a mottled bronze, to which sickness soon changes the rich
berry-brown of a seaman's complexion in the tropics.
On the quarter-deck was one whom I took for the chief mate. He wore a
broad-brimmed Panama hat, and his spy-glass was levelled as we
advanced.
When we came alongside, a low cry ran fore and aft the deck, and
everybody gazed at us with inquiring eyes. And well they might. To
say nothing of the savage boat's crew, panting with excitement, all
gesture and vociferation, my own appearance was calculated to excite
curiosity. A robe of the native cloth was thrown over my shoulders, my
hair and beard were uncut, and I betrayed other evidences of my recent
adventure. Immediately on gaining the deck, they beset me on all sides
with questions, the half of which I could not answer, so incessantly
were they put.
As an instance of the curious coincidences which often befall the sailor,
I must here mention that two countenances before me were familiar.
One was that of an old man-of-war's-man, whose acquaintance I had
made in Rio de Janeiro, at which place touched the ship in which I
sailed from home. The other was a young man whom, four years
previous, I had frequently met in a sailor boarding-house in Liverpool.
I remembered parting with him at Prince's Dock Gates, in the midst of a

swarm of police-officers, trackmen, stevedores, beggars, and the like.
And here we were again:--years had rolled by, many a league of ocean
had been traversed, and we were thrown together under circumstances
which almost made me doubt my own existence.
But a few moments passed ere I was sent for into the cabin by the
captain.
He was quite a young man, pale and slender, more like a sickly
counting-house clerk than a bluff sea-captain. Bidding me be seated, he
ordered the steward to hand me a glass of Pisco. In the state I was, this
stimulus almost made me delirious; so that of all I then went on to
relate concerning my residence on the island I can scarcely remember a
word. After this I was asked whether I desired to "ship"; of course I
said yes; that is, if he would allow me to enter for one cruise, engaging
to discharge me, if I so desired, at the next port. In this way men are
frequently shipped on board whalemen in the South Seas. My
stipulation was acceded to, and the ship's articles handed me to sign.
The mate was now called below, and charged to make a "well man" of
me; not, let it be borne in mind, that the captain felt any great
compassion for me, he only desired to have the benefit of my services
as soon as possible.
Helping me on deck, the mate stretched me out on the windlass and
commenced examining my limb; and then doctoring it after a fashion
with something from the medicine-chest, rolled it up in a piece of an
old sail, making so big a bundle that, with my feet resting on the
windlass, I might have been taken for a sailor with the gout. While this
was going on, someone removing my tappa cloak slipped on a blue
frock in its place, and another, actuated by the same desire to make a
civilized mortal of me, flourished about my head a great pair lie
imminent jeopardy of both ears, and the certain destruction of hair and
beard.
The day was now drawing to a close, and, as the land faded from my
sight, I was all alive to the change in my condition. But how far short
of our expectations is oftentimes the fulfilment of the most ardent
hopes. Safe aboard of a ship--so long my earnest prayer--with home
and friends once more in prospect, I nevertheless felt weighed down by
a melancholy that could not be shaken off. It was the thought of never
more seeing those who, notwithstanding their desire to retain me a

captive, had, upon the whole, treated me so kindly. I was leaving them
for ever.
So unforeseen and sudden had been my escape, so excited had I been
through it all, and so great the contrast between the luxurious repose of
the valley, and the wild noise and motion of a ship at sea, that at times
my recent adventures had all the strangeness of a dream; and I could
scarcely believe that the same sun now setting over a waste of waters,
had that very morning risen above the mountains and peered in upon
me as I