To the Ends of the Earth Read Free Page A

pettishness in my words. Indeed, had it not been for a tolerable wine I should be downright angry. Our Noah, one Captain Anderson, has not chosen to appear. I shall make myself known to him at the first opportunity but now it is dark. Tomorrow morning I propose to examine the topography of the vessel and form an acquaintance with the better sort of officer if there be any. We have ladies, some young, some middling , some old. We have some oldish gentlemen, a youngish army officer and a younger parson. This last poor fellow tried to ask a blessing on our meal and fell to eating as bashful as a bride. I have not been able to see Mr Prettiman but suppose he is aboard.
    Wheeler tells me the wind will veer during the night and we shall get a-weigh, make sail; be off, start on our vast journey when the tide turns. I have told him I am a good sailor and have observed that same peculiar light, which is not quite a smile but rather an involuntary expansiveness, flit across his face. I made an immediate resolution to teach the man a lesson in manners at the first opportunity—but as I write these very words the pattern of our wooden world changes. There is a volleying and thundering up there from what must be the loosened canvas. There is the shrilling of pipes. Good God, can human throats emit such noises? But that and that must be the signal guns! Outside my hutch a passenger has fallen with many oaths and theladies are shrieking, the cattle are lowing and the sheep baaing. All is confusion. Perhaps then the cows are baaing, the sheep lowing and the ladies damning the ship and her timbers to all hell fire? The canvas bowl into which Wheeler poured water for me has shifted in its gimbals and now lies at a slight angle.
    Our anchor has been plucked out of the sand and gravel of Old England. I shall have no connection with my native soil for three, or it may be four or five, years. I own that even with the prospect of interesting and advantageous employment before me it is a solemn thought.
    How else, since we are being solemn, should I conclude the account of my first day at sea than with an expression of my profound gratitude? You have set my foot on the ladder and however high I climb—for I must warn your lordship that my ambition is boundless!—I shall never forget whose kindly hand first helped me upwards. That he may never be found unworthy of that hand, nor do anything unworthy of it—is the prayer—the intention —of your lordship’s grateful godson.
    EDMUND TALBOT

(2)
    I have placed the number “2” at the beginning of this entry though I do not know how much I shall set down today. Circumstances are all against careful composition. There has been so little strength in my limbs—the prive-house , the loo—I beg its pardon, I do not know what it should be called since in strict sea-language the heads are at the forward end of the vessel, the young gentlemen should have a roundhouse and the lieutenants should have—I do not know what the lieutenants should have. The constant movement of the vessel and the need constantly to adjust my body to it—
    Your lordship was pleased to recommend that I should conceal nothing. Do you not remember conducting me from the library with a friendly arm across my shoulder, ejaculating in your jovial way, “Tell all, my boy! Hold nothing back! Let me live again through you!” The devil is in it, then, I have been most confoundedly seasick and kept my bunk. After all, Seneca off Naples was in my predicament was he not—but you will remember—and if even a stoic philosopher is reduced by a few miles of lumpy water, what will become of all us poor fellows on higher seas? I must own to have been reduced already to salt tears by exhaustion and to have been discovered in such a womanish state by Wheeler! However, he is a worthy fellow. I explained my tears by my exhaustion and he agreed cheerfully.
    “You, sir,” said he, “would hunt all day and dance all night at the end of it. Now