The serious and ludicrous are near akin in emotional relationship, for
we often pass without a shock from the one to the other, and it matters
not which takes precedence. Some of our company younger than the rest
yearned for sport. So the captain said that they might have a candy
scrape. Accordingly some molasses was sent to the galley to be boiled,
while the chief agents in the enterprise shelled some nuts to be put
into a part of it, the rest being intended to be pulled and therefore
was kept clear. The molasses proved to be old and fermented, therefore
it did not boil well and so could not harden. The result was, instead
of nut candy, a pan of sour molasses mixed with nuts, which was offered
to us as a second course at supper. The other half of the molasses was
sentenced to be boiled over again. The steward appeared with it and
laid it before the adepts in candy frolics; but it looked like a mass
of kelp; he had vainly tried to work it into a state which would tempt
the appetite; but it was too stiff to be pulled, so he had chopped it
into a likeness to sticks. Though it tasted burnt and sour, it was
pronounced as good as could be expected.--At sundown one of the mates
found some fire crackers which had escaped discovery in some former
voyage. The sailors were allowed to celebrate the advent of New Year,
so they borrowed of the steward some tin vessels and as soon as eight
bells were struck, forward and aft, they set up a fearful din and the
crackers were fired, to welcome the incoming year. The noise resembled
that with which, as we afterwards observed, the Chinese prelude
their fights. In the midst of the tumult the stentorian voice of the
boatswain was heard resounding some admonitory strain, ending with his
favorite canticle, “On Canaan’s happy shore.”