" I was
impressed in those days with the opinions of these vain old
men, and thought how great in their profession they must
have been. As a matter of fact, they were no better nor any
worse than the men against whom a whimsical vanity caused
them to inveigh. Many years have passed since I had the
honour of sailing with them and many, if not all of them,
may be long since dead; but I sometimes think of them as
amongst the finest specimens of men that ever I was
associated with. Their fine manhood towered over everything
that was common or mean, in spite of their wayward talk.
CHAPTER II
PECULIAR AND UNEDUCATED
The average seaman of the middle of the nineteenth century,
like his predecessor, was in many respects a cruel animal.
To appearance he was void of every human feeling, and yet
behind all the rugged savagery there was a big and generous
heart. The fact is, this apparent or real callousness was
the result of a system, pernicious in its influence, that
caused the successive generations of seafaring men to swell
with vanity if they could but acquire the reputation of
being desperadoes; and this ambition was not an exclusive
possession of those whose education had been deplorably
neglected.
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