Two Years Before the Mast

hoy! a man overboard!” This unwonted cry sent a thrill through the heart of every one, and, hurrying on deck, we found the vessel hove flat aback, with all her studding-sails set; f

willing seaman, and by the men as a lively, hearty fellow, and a good shipmate. He was going aloft to fit a strap round the main topmasthead, for ringtail halyards, and had the strap and block, a coil of halyards, and a marline-spike about his neck. He fell from the starboard futtock shrouds, and, not knowing how to swim, and being heavily dressed, with all those things round his nec

t happens, and to recall it when it has passed. A man is shot down by your side in battle, and the mangled body remains an object, and a real evidence; but at sea, the man is near you — at your side — you hear his voice, and in an instant he is gone, and nothing but a vacancy shows his loss. Then, too, at sea — to use a homely but expressive phrase — you miss a man so much. A dozen men are shut up together in a little bark upon the wide, wide sea, and for months and months see no forms and hear no voi

uise is up soon! He knew his work, and did his duty, and was a good shipmate.” Then usually follows some allusion to another world, for sailors are almost all believers, in their way; though their notions and opinions are unfixed and at loose ends. They say, “God won’t be hard upon the poor fellow,” and seldom get beyond the common phrase which seems to imply that their sufferings and hard treatment here will be passed to their credit in the books of the Great

, and a little pleasure with much pain. The beautiful is linked with the rev

t and asked them if they were satisfied that everything had been done to save the man, and if they thought there was any use in remaining there longer. The cre

d of the voyage. In this way the trouble and risk of keeping his things through the voyage are avoided, and the clothes are usually sold for more than they would be worth on shore. Accordingly, we had no sooner got the ship before the wind, than his chest was brought up upon the forecastle, and the sale began. The jackets and trousers in which we h

any good to come of a voyage made against the will, and the deceased man shipped and spent his advance, and was afterwards very unwilling to go, but, not being able to refund, was obliged to sail with us. A boy, too, who had

men, and which the recent death had waked up in his mind. He talked about George’s having spoken of his friends, and said he believed few men died without having a warning of it, which he supported by a great many stories of dreams, and of unusual behavior of men before death. From this he wen

what countryman

d I; “he’s

a German?” s

s to Breme

ure o’ dat

saying that he could speak no lan

mighty ‘fraid he was a Fin. I tell you what, I

perience, at hand, and was not to be moved. He had been to the Sandwich Islands in a vessel in which the sail-maker was a Fin, and could do anything he was of a mind to. This sail-maker kept a junk bottle in his berth, which was always just half

and having a ship heave in sight astern, overhaul, and pass them, with as fair

to want to see ’em ‘board a ship. If dey can’t hav

ted, sided with the cook, and said that he himself had been in a ship where they had a head wind for a fortnight, and the captain found out at last that one of the men, with whom he had had same hard words a short time before, was a Fin, and immediately told him if he didn’t stop the head wind he would sh

cook, “what yo

that it would have been odd if the wind had

an anybody. You know better dan dem as ‘as seen it wid der own eyes. You wait t