nd flabby
activity all that crowded mass of clothing, with its vague suggestions
of drowned, mutilated and flattened humanity. Trunks without heads waved
at you arms without hands; legs without feet kicked fantastically with
collapsible flourishes; and there were long white garments that, taking
the wind fairly through their neck openings edged with lace, became for
a moment violently distended as by the passage of obese and invisible
bodies. On these days you could make out that ship at a great distance
by the multi-coloured grotesque riot going on abaft her mizzen mast.

She had her berth just ahead of me, and her name was Diana,--Diana not
of Ephesus but of Bremen. This was proclaimed in white letters a foot
long spaced widely across the stern (somewhat like the lettering of a
shop-sign) under the cottage windows. This ridiculously unsuitable name
struck one as an impertinence towards the memory of the most charming
of goddesses; for, apart from the fact that the old craft was physically
incapable of engaging in any sort of chase, there was a gang of four
children belonging to her. They peeped over the rail at passing boats
and occasionally dropped various objects into them. Thus, sometime
before I knew Hermann to speak to, I received on my hat a horrid
rag-doll belonging to Hermann's eldest daughter. However, these
youngsters were upon the whole well behaved. They had fair heads, round
eyes, round little knobby noses, and they resembled their father a good
deal.

This Diana of Bremen was a most innocent old ship, and seemed to know
nothing of the wicked sea, as there are on shore households that know
nothing of the corrupt world. And the sentiments she suggested were
unexceptionable and mainly of a domestic order. She was a home. All
these dear children had learned to walk on her roomy quarter-deck. In
such thoughts there is something pretty, even touching. Their teeth, I
should judge, they had cut on the ends of her running gear. I have
many times observed the baby Hermann (Nicholas) engaged in gnawing the
whipping of the fore-royal brace. Nicholas' favourite place of residence
was under the main fife-rail. Directly he was let loose he would
crawl off there, and the first seaman who came along would bring him,
carefully held aloft in tarry hands, back to the cabin door. I fancy
there must have been a standing order to that effect. In the course of
these transportations the baby, who was the only peppery person in