All English whalemen are bound by-law to carry a physician, who, of
course, is rated a gentleman, and lives in the cabin, with nothing
but his professional duties to attend to; but incidentally he drinks
"flip" and plays cards with the captain.
There was such a worthy
aboard of the Julia; but, curious to tell, he lived in the forecastle
with the men. And this was the way it happened.
In the early part of the voyage the doctor and the captain lived
together as pleasantly as could be. To say nothing of many a can they
drank over the cabin transom, both of them had read books, and one of
them had travelled; so their stories never flagged. But once on a
time they got into a dispute about politics, and the doctor,
moreover, getting into a rage, drove home an argument with his fist,
and left the captain on the floor literally silenced. This was
carrying it with a high hand; so he was shut up in his state-room for
ten days, and left to meditate on bread and water, and the
impropriety of flying into a passion. Smarting under his disgrace, he
undertook, a short time after his liberation, to leave the vessel
clandestinely at one of the islands, but was brought back
ignominiously, and again shut up. Being set at large for the second
time, he vowed he would not live any longer with the captain, and
went forward with his chests among the sailors, where he was received
with open arms as a good fellow and an injured man.
I must give some further account of him, for he figures largely in the
narrative. His early history, like that of many other heroes, was
enveloped in the profoundest obscurity; though he threw out hints of
a patrimonial estate, a nabob uncle, and an unfortunate affair which
sent him a-roving. All that was known, however, was this. He had gone
out to Sydney as assistant-surgeon of an emigrant ship. On his
arrival there, he went back into the country, and after a few months'
wanderings, returned to Sydney penniless, and entered as doctor
aboard of the Julia.
His personal appearance was remarkable. He was over six feet high - a
tower of bones, with a complexion absolutely colourless, fair hair,
and a light unscrupulous gray eye, twinkling occasionally at the very
devil of mischief. Among the crew, he went by the name of the Long
Doctor, or more frequently still, Doctor Long Ghost. And from
whatever high estate Doctor Long Ghost might have fallen, he had
certainly at some time or other spent money, drunk Burgundy, and
associated with gentlemen.
As for his learning, he quoted Virgil, and talked of Hobbs of
Malmsbury, beside repeating poetry by the canto, especially Hudibras.
He was, moreover, a man who had seen the world. In the easiest way
imaginable, he could refer to an amour he had in Palermo, his
lion-hunting before breakfast among the Caffres, and the quality of
the coffee to be drunk in Muscat; and about these places, and a
hundred others, he had more anecdotes than I can tell of. Then such
mellow old songs as he sang, in a voice so round and racy, the real
juice of sound. How such notes came forth from his lank body was a
constant marvel.
Upon the whole, Long Ghost was as entertaining a companion as one
could wish; and to me in the Julia, an absolute godsend.
CHAPTER III.
FURTHER ACCOUNT OF THE JULIA
OWING to the absence of anything like regular discipline, the vessel
was in a state of the greatest uproar. The captain, having for some
time past been more or less confined to the cabin from sickness, was
seldom seen. The mate, however, was as hearty as a young lion, and
ran about the decks making himself heard at all hours. Bembo, the
New Zealand harpooner, held little intercourse with anybody but the
mate, who could talk to him freely in his own lingo. Part of his time
he spent out on the bowsprit, fishing for albicores with a bone hook;
and occasionally he waked all hands up of a dark night dancing some
cannibal fandango all by himself on the forecastle. But, upon the
whole, he was remarkably quiet, though something in his eye showed he
was far from being harmless.
Doctor Long Ghost, having sent in a written resignation as the ship's
doctor, gave himself out as a passenger for Sydney, and took the
world quite easy. As for the crew, those who were sick seemed
marvellously contented for men in their condition; and the rest, not
displeased with the general licence, gave themselves little thought
of the morrow.
The Julia's provisions were very poor. When opened, the barrels of
pork looked as if preserved in iron rust, and diffused an odour like
a stale ragout. The beef was worse yet; a mahogany-coloured fibrous
substance, so tough and tasteless, that I almost believed the cook's
story of a horse's hoof with the shoe on having been fished up out of
the pickle of one of the casks. Nor was the biscuit much better;
nearly all of it was broken into hard, little gunflints, honeycombed
through and through, as if the worms usually infesting this article
in long tropical voyages had, in boring after nutriment, come out at
the antipodes without finding anything.
Of what sailors call "small stores," we had but little. "Tea,"
however, we had in abundance; though, I dare say, the Hong merchants
never had the shipping of it. Beside this, every other day we had
what English seamen call "shot soup" - great round peas, polishing
themselves like pebbles by rolling about in tepid water.
It was afterward told me, that all our provisions had been purchased
by the owners at an auction sale of condemned navy stores in Sydney.
But notwithstanding the wateriness of the first course of soup, and
the saline flavour of the beef and pork, a sailor might have made a
satisfactory meal aboard of the Julia had there been any side
dishes - a potato or two, a yam, or a plantain.
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