The party to which I belonged consisted originally of but three
members. Captain Bill was a short, broad-faced, blue-eyed Saxon, who
no sooner felt his sea-legs, as the sailors said, well under him,
than he began to discover an aptitude for naval tactics that might
almost be called genius. Instead of spending his time in those light
and trifling pursuits that engrossed the attention of those about
him, he applied himself with unwearied assiduity to the acquisition
of that knowledge that is usually so distasteful to a landsman; and
had constantly in his mouth some such horrid and uncouth phrases
as, "How's she head?" "Keep her off half a point," "Haul in your
jib-sheets," and others equally portentous. He at length acquired
such a facility in this sort of exercise that he came to be regarded
as a very high authority in such matters, and hence received from
his companions the honorary title of Captain, which his subsequent
fortune strangely confirmed. One of the sailors whom I met by chance
in the maintop, assured me that he, Captain Bill, knew almost as much
as the Captain himself; and that it was a great pity he had not been
sent to sea when he was a boy, as there was no knowing what might have
happened. I assented to all he said, but took care to say nothing
about it to my companion, for fear of inflaming his malady; as his
conversation, even then, was almost wholly made up of the phrases
above mentioned, and it was well nigh impossible to obtain from him an
answer such as a landsman could understand. As Captain Bill, in spite
of this little infirmity, was a very clever fellow, and was reputed
to have a great deal of what is commonly called luck, I felicitated
myself, not a little, on having him for a partner, as I thought I must
surely share in his good fortune.
A younger brother of the author, who having like Captain Bill lost
his proper title, was distinguished by the name of Tertium Quid, or
simply Tertium, and a big bull-dog called Zachary Taylor, completed
our little party.
The most conspicuous person in the ship was Charley Bainbridge; who,
without being acknowledged as such, was generally regarded as the
representative head of the Vermonters. He was the spoilt child of his
parents, just beginning, curiously, to dabble in the great mudpuddle
of the world. Laughing blue eyes, hair brown and curling, a frank,
good-humoured expression, and a fine manly figure, had stamped him
plainly as one of that happy or unhappy class who never do anything
for themselves, but are always sure to find others ready to do for
them. He, as well as his companions, were declared decidedly green,
at the outset of our voyage, by some who had seen a little more of
the world; but, as the same uncomfortable wisdom had pronounced a
similar judgment upon the author, the reader will readily perceive
how much it was worth. Our hero left home with an abundant allowance,
but this being exhausted by the time we arrived at San Francisco, he
was obliged to borrow money in order to reach the mines. The air of
the Yuba, whither he first directed his steps, did not agree with
his health, and we next heard of him in the southern mines, where,
being still unsuccessful, he borrowed money for the fourth time, and
returning to Sacramento went into the business of cleaning tripe on a
very enlarged scale, that plainly declared him intended only for grand
and arduous undertakings. He would undoubtedly have succeeded in this
new enterprise but for one of those unlucky accidents that sometimes
befall the wisest, and would certainly never have entered into the
calculations of Napoleon himself. He was one day backing his cart,
filled with the precious commodity, too near the bank of the river,
which here falls some thirty feet at a very dangerous angle, when the
wheels suddenly passing beyond the brink, the tripe, the cart, and the
horse went rolling over each other down the declivity into the river.
He stood awhile in amaze, such an illustration of the laws of gravity
having probably never been heard of in the halls of old Harvard;
but, finding that there was no hope of an immediate resurrection, he
cast one longing, lingering look behind, and going at once on board
the boat bid a final farewell to the country that had used him so
ungratefully. I was the more interested in the adventures of this
hero, as I thought they discovered a temper, like my own, too noble
for what weaker and more grovelling minds call success.
Dan Carpenter belonged to the same party. He was oftener called "Old
Herculaneum," from an admirable misapprehension of the sense of
that word, which he was wont to use, in connection with grasp, as
synonomous with Herculean. He had studied a little law, and was the
best man at checkers in the ship. His conversation was rather homely
than brilliant, but he sometimes blundered into what were considered
at sea very tolerable jests.
A man of a very different stamp was Thomas Busby, our Manhattan
merchant. He was an admirable representative of his class, and
prouder of the distinction than if he had written "The Reveries of
a Bachelor." He thought a Broadway merchant the greatest man in the
world, and himself the greatest merchant in Broadway. He was the most
respectable man I ever saw,--the valet, I forget his name, in David
Copperfield, was nothing to him,--and this was the more remarkable,
since his figure was too slight to act the character to advantage.
His manner was everything; though really below the medium height, he
had the art ascribed to Louis XIV. of impressing the beholder with a
painful idea of his majestic proportions. Methinks I see him now; his
slight but jaunty figure cased in the finest of broadcloth, his head
thrown back, his chest expanded, as if about to toss a roll of cloth
on to a counter; and then his voice! it seemed impossible it should
proceed from anything less than a giant,--indeed I never believed
it rightfully belonged to him, but was one he had stolen from some
thick-witted Goliah, with whom he had left his own piping notes in
exchange.
His most amusing idiosyncrasy, however, was his contempt for college
learning; it amounted to a positive mania. "When any one," said he,
"applied for a situation at our store, (he was fond of telling how
many clerks he employed at once,) I always asked him if he had been
to college; and, if he had, that was enough--I had nothing more to do
with him." In spite however of this antipathy, he had once studied a
little Latin, and adroitly contrived to be vain of this distinction,
and, at the same time, of having forgotten all he had learned.
The little spice of the ridiculous thus mingled in his composition
only made Busby the more agreeable as a companion; as it is impossible
to feel an affection, I had almost said respect, for one at whom we
cannot sometimes laugh.
Then there was----, that Will-o'-the-wisp, that strange compound
of opposite and seemingly, contradictory qualities, the unwinking,
almost ubiquitous celerity of the lizard, and more than elephantine
clumsiness. He needed to tie up his wits, as Lightfoot in the story
tied up his legs that he might run slow enough to catch the deer. He
walked with a pair of seven-league boots, and stept beyond the mark
continually.
At table, he was the victim of more unlucky accidents than all the
rest of the ship's company. He upset his soup into his lap. He ran his
fork through his cheek. He stept into the slop-pail. He trod on his
own toes. He tript himself up. If it had been possible, he would have
run between his own legs. He was always sure to spit on his own boot,
or on another's. He emptied his wash-bowl on the Captain's head. Off
Cape Horn he fell overboard, and only saved himself by catching his
leg in a rope that lamed him for a week. As he said, nobody else could
have possibly done it; but nobody else would have fallen.