The Second Day After
Our Arrival, We Went On Board The Brig, It Being Sunday, As A
Matter Of Curiosity;
And there was enough there to gratify it.
Though no larger than the Pilgrim, she had five or six officers,
And a crew of between twenty and thirty; and such a stupid and
greasy-looking set, I certainly never saw before. Although it
was quite comfortable weather, and we had nothing on but straw
hats, shirts, and duck trowsers, and were barefooted, they had,
every man of them, double-soled boots, coming up to the knees,
and well greased; thick woolen trowsers, frocks, waistcoats,
pea-jackets, woolen caps, and everything in true Nova Zembla
rig; and in the warmest days they made no change. The clothing
of one of these men would weigh nearly as much as that of half
our crew. They had brutish faces, looked like the antipodes of
sailors, and apparently dealt in nothing but grease. They lived
upon grease; eat it, drank it, slept in the midst of it, and their
clothes were covered with it. To a Russian, grease is the greatest
luxury. They looked with greedy eyes upon the tallow-bags as they
were taken into the vessel, and, no doubt, would have eaten one up
whole, had not the officer kept watch over it. The grease seemed
actually coming through their pores, and out in their hair, and on
their faces. It seems as if it were this saturation which makes
them stand cold and rain so well.
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