r
they are _Lepidoptera_ _Steptopotera_; but as for telling how you can
get rid of them, or how they get away from you when you strike
them,--why, Linnaeus knew as little of that as John Foy the idiot did.
These nine hours made Nolan's regular daily "occupation." The rest of
the time he talked or walked. Till he grew very old, he went aloft a
great deal. He always kept up with his exercise; and I never heard that
he was ill. If any other man was ill, he was the kindest nurse in the
world; and he knew more than half the surgeons do. Then if anybody was
sick or died, or if the captain wanted him to on any other occasion, he
was always ready to read prayers. I have remarked that he read
beautifully.

My own acquaintance with Philip Nolan began six or eight years after the
War, on my first voyage after I was appointed a midshipman. It was in
the first days after our Slave-Trade treaty, while the Reigning House,
which was still the House of Virginia, had still a sort of
sentimentalism about the suppression of the horrors of the Middle
Passage, and something was sometimes done that way. We were in the South
Atlantic on that business. From the time I joined, I believe I thought
Nolan was a sort of lay chaplain--a chaplain with a blue coat. I never
asked about him. Everything in the ship was strange to me. I knew it was
green to ask questions, and I suppose I thought there was a
"Plain-Buttons" on every ship. We had him to dine in our mess once a
week, and the caution was given that on that day nothing was to be said
about home. But if they had told us not to say anything about the planet
Mars or the Book of Deuteronomy, I should not have asked why; there
were, a great many things which seemed to me to have as little reason. I
first came to understand anything about "the man without a country" one
day when we overhauled a dirty little schooner which had slaves on
board. An officer was sent to take charge of her, and, after a few
minutes, he sent back his boat to ask that some one might be sent him
who could speak Portuguese. We were all looking over the rail when the
message came, and we all wished we could interpret, when the captain
asked who spoke Portuguese. But none of the officers did; and just as
the captain was sending forward to ask if any of the people could, Nolan
stepped out and said he should be glad to interpret, if the captain
wished, as he understood the language. The captain thanked him, fitted
out another boa