Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2)

Chapter 3

A King For A Comrade

At the time I now write of, we must have been something more than

sixty degrees to the west of the Gallipagos. And having attained a

desirable longitude, we were standing northward for our arctic

destination: around us one wide sea.

But due west, though distant a thousand miles, stretched north and

south an almost endless Archipelago, here and there inhabited, but

little known; and mostly unfrequented, even by whalemen, who go

almost every where. Beginning at the southerly termination of this

great chain, it comprises the islands loosely known as Ellice's

group; then, the Kingsmill isles; then, the Radack and Mulgrave

clusters. These islands had been represented to me as mostly of coral

formation, low and fertile, and abounding in a variety of fruits. The

language of the people was said to be very similar to that or the

Navigator's islands, from which, their ancestors are supposed to have

emigrated.

And thus much being said, all has been related that I then knew of

the islands in question. Enough, however, that they existed at all;

and that our path thereto lay over a pleasant sea, and before a

reliable Trade-wind. The distance, though great, was merely an

extension of water; so much blankness to be sailed over; and in a

craft, too, that properly managed has been known to outlive great

ships in a gale. For this much is true of a whale-boat, the

cunningest thing in its way ever fabricated by man.

Upon one of the Kingsmill islands, then, I determined to plant

my foot, come what come would. And I was equally determined that one

of the ship's boats should float me thither. But I had no idea of

being without a companion. It would be a weary watch to keep all by

myself, with naught but the horizon in sight.

Now, among the crew was a fine old seaman, one Jarl; how old, no one

could tell, not even himself. Forecastle chronology is ever vague and

defective. "Man and boy," said honest Jarl, "I have lived ever since

I can remember." And truly, who may call to mind when he was not? To

ourselves, we all seem coeval with creation. Whence it comes, that it

is so hard to die, ere the world itself is departed.

Jarl hailed from the isle of Skye, one of the constellated Hebrides.

Hence, they often called him the Skyeman. And though he was far from

being piratical of soul, he was yet an old Norseman to behold. His

hands were brawny as the paws of a bear; his voice hoarse as a storm

roaring round the old peak of Mull; and his long yellow hair waved

round his head like a sunset. My life for it, Jarl, thy ancestors

were Vikings, who many a time sailed over the salt German sea and the

Baltic; who wedded their Brynhildas in Jutland; and are now quaffing

mead in the halls of Valhalla, and beating time with their cans to

the hymns of the Scalds. Ah! how the old Sagas run through me!

Yet Jarl, the descendant of heroes and kings, was a lone, friendless

mariner on the main, only true to his origin in the sea-life that he

led. But so it has been, and forever will be. What yeoman shall swear

that he is not descended from Alfred? what dunce, that he is not

sprung of old Homer? King Noah, God bless him! fathered us all. Then

hold up your heads, oh ye Helots, blood potential flows through your

veins. All of us have monarchs and sages for kinsmen; nay, angels and

archangels for cousins; since in antediluvian days, the sons of God

did verily wed with our mothers, the irresistible daughters of Eve.

Thus all generations are blended: and heaven and earth of one

kin: the hierarchies of seraphs in the uttermost skies; the thrones

and principalities in the zodiac; the shades that roam throughout

space; the nations and families, flocks and folds of the earth; one

and all, brothers in essence--oh, be we then brothers indeed! All

things form but one whole; the universe a Judea, and God Jehovah its

head. Then no more let us start with affright. In a theocracy, what

is to fear? Let us compose ourselves to death as fagged horsemen

sleep in the saddle. Let us welcome even ghosts when they rise. Away

with our stares and grimaces. The New Zealander's tattooing is not a

prodigy; nor the c******n's ways an enigma. No custom is strange; no

creed is absurd; no foe, but who will in the end prove a friend. In

heaven, at last, our good, old, white-haired father Adam will greet

all alike, and sociality forever prevail. Christian shall join hands

between Gentile and Jew; grim Dante forget his Infernos, and shake

sides with fat Rabelais; and monk Luther, over a flagon of old

nectar, talk over old times with Pope Leo. Then, shall we sit by the

sages, who of yore gave laws to the Medes and Persians in the sun; by

the cavalry captains in Perseus, who cried, "To horse!" when waked by

their Last Trump sounding to the charge; by the old hunters, who

eternities ago, hunted the moose in Orion; by the minstrels, who sang

in the Milky Way when Jesus our Saviour was born. Then shall we list

to no shallow gossip of Magellans and Drakes; but give ear to the

voyagers who have circumnavigated the Ecliptic; who rounded the Polar

Star as Cape Horn. Then shall the Stagirite and Kant be forgotten,

and another folio than theirs be turned over for wisdom; even the

folio now spread with horoscopes as yet undeciphered, the heaven of

heavens on high.

Now, in old Jarl's lingo there was never an idiom. Your aboriginal

tar is too much of a cosmopolitan for that. Long companionship with

seamen of all tribes: Manilla-men, Anglo-Saxons, Cholos, Lascars, and

Danes, wear away in good time all mother-tongue stammerings. You sink

your clan; down goes your nation; you speak a world's language,

jovially jabbering in the Lingua-Franca of the forecastle.

True to his calling, the Skyeman was very illiterate; witless of

Salamanca, Heidelberg, or Brazen-Nose; in Delhi, had never turned

over the books of the Brahmins. For geography, in which sailors

should be adepts, since they are forever turning over and over the

great globe of globes, poor Jarl was deplorably lacking. According to

his view of the matter, this terraqueous world had been formed in the

manner of a tart; the land being a mere marginal crust, within which

rolled the watery world proper. Such seemed my good Viking's theory

of cosmography. As for other worlds, he weened not of them; yet full

as much as Chrysostom.

Ah, Jarl! an honest, earnest Wight; so true and simple, that the

secret operations of thy soul were more inscrutable than the subtle

workings of Spinoza's.

Thus much be said of the Skyeman; for he was exceedingly taciturn,

and but seldom will speak for himself.

Now, higher sympathies apart, for Jarl I had a wonderful liking; for

he loved me; from the first had cleaved to me.

It is sometimes the case, that an old mariner like him will conceive

a very strong attachment for some young sailor, his shipmate; an

attachment so devoted, as to be wholly inexplicable, unless

originating in that heart-loneliness which overtakes most seamen as

they grow aged; impelling them to fasten upon some chance object of

regard. But however it was, my Viking, thy unbidden affection was the

noblest homage ever paid me. And frankly, I am more inclined to think

well of myself, as in some way deserving thy devotion, than from the

rounded compliments of more cultivated minds.

Now, at sea, and in the fellowship of sailors, all men appear as they

are. No school like a ship for studying human nature. The contact of

one man with another is too near and constant to favor deceit. You

wear your character as loosely as your flowing trowsers. Vain

all endeavors to assume qualities not yours; or to conceal those you

possess. Incognitos, however desirable, are out of the question. And

thus aboard of all ships in which I have sailed, I have invariably

been known by a sort of thawing-room title. Not,--let me hurry to

say,--that I put hand in tar bucket with a squeamish air, or ascended

the rigging with a Chesterfieldian mince. No, no, I was never better

than my vocation; and mine have been many. I showed as brown a chest,

and as hard a hand, as the tarriest tar of them all. And never did

shipmate of mine upbraid me with a genteel disinclination to duty,

though it carried me to truck of main-mast, or jib-boom-end, in the

most wolfish blast that ever howled.

Whence then, this annoying appellation? for annoying it most

assuredly was. It was because of something in me that could not be

hidden; stealing out in an occasional polysyllable; an otherwise

incomprehensible deliberation in dining; remote, unguarded allusions

to Belles-Lettres affairs; and other trifles superfluous to mention.

But suffice it to say, that it had gone abroad among the Areturion's

crew, that at some indefinite period of my career, I had been a

"nob." But Jarl seemed to go further. He must have taken me for one

of the House of Hanover in disguise; or, haply, for bonneted Charles

Edward the Pretender, who, like the Wandering Jew, may yet be a

vagrant. At any rate, his loyalty was extreme. Unsolicited, he was my

laundress and tailor; a most expert one, too; and when at meal-times

my turn came round to look out at the mast-head, or stand at the

wheel, he catered for me among the "kids" in the forecastle with

unwearied assiduity. Many's the good lump of "duff" for which I was

indebted to my good Viking's good care of me. And like Sesostris I

was served by a monarch. Yet in some degree the obligation was

mutual. For be it known that, in sea-parlance, we were _chummies._

Now this _chummying_ among sailors is like the brotherhood subsisting

between a brace of collegians (chums) rooming together. It is a

Fidus-Achates-ship, a league of offense and defense, a copartnership

of chests and toilets, a bond of love and good feeling, and a mutual

championship of the absent one. True, my nautical reminiscenses

remind me of sundry lazy, ne'er-do-well, unprofitable, and abominable

chummies; chummies, who at meal times were last at the "kids," when

their unfortunate partners were high upon the spars; chummies, who

affected awkwardness at the needle, and conscientious scruples about

dabbling in the suds; so that chummy the simple was made to do all

the work of the firm, while chummy the cunning played the sleeping

partner in his hammock. Out upon such chummies!

But I appeal to thee, honest Jarl, if I was ever chummy the cunning.

Never mind if thou didst fabricate my tarpaulins; and with Samaritan

charity bind up the rents, and pour needle and thread into the

frightful gashes that agonized my hapless nether integuments, which

thou calledst "ducks;"--Didst thou not expressly declare, that all

these things, and more, thou wouldst do for me, despite my own quaint

thimble, fashioned from the ivory tusk of a whale? Nay; could I even

wrest from thy willful hands my very shirt, when once thou hadst it

steaming in an unsavory pickle in thy capacious vat, a decapitated

cask? Full well thou knowest, Jarl, that these things are true; and I

am bound to say it, to disclaim any lurking desire to reap advantage

from thy great good nature.

Now my Viking for me, thought I, when I cast about for a comrade; and

my Viking alone.