Description
Two Years Before the Mast
CHAPTER I
The fourteenth of August was the day fixed upon for the sailing
of the brig Pilgrim, on her voyage from Boston, round Cape Horn,
to the Western coast of North America. As she was to get under way
early in the afternoon, I made my appearance on board at twelve
o’clock, in full sea-rig, with my chest, containing an outfit for
a two or three years’ voyage, which I had undertaken from a
determination to cure, if possible, by an entire change of life,
and by a long absence from books, with a plenty of hard work,
plain food, and open air, a weakness of the eyes, which had
obliged me to give up my studies, and which no medical aid seemed
likely to remedy.
The change from the tight frock-coat, silk cap, and kid gloves of
an undergraduate at Harvard, to the loose duck trousers, checked
shirt, and tarpaulin hat of a sailor, though somewhat of a
transformation, was soon made; and I supposed that I should pass
very well for a Jack tar. But it is impossible to deceive the
practised eye in these matters; and while I thought myself to be
looking as salt as Neptune himself, I was, no doubt, known for a
landsman by every one on board as soon as I hove in sight. A
sailor has a peculiar cut to his clothes, and a way of wearing
them which a green hand can never get. The trousers, tight round
the hips, and thence hanging long and loose round the feet, a
superabundance of checked shirt, a low-crowned, well-varnished
black hat, worn on the back of the head, with half a fathom of
black ribbon hanging over the left eye, and a slip-tie to the
black silk neckerchief, with sundry other minutiae, are signs, the
want of which betrays the beginner at once. Besides the points in
my dress which were out of the way, doubtless my complexion and
hands were qu
Product ID: 9781776789092
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