alays to do the hard work.

The captain had his wife on board--his frow, as he called her; and Mrs
Van Deck appeared to take no inconsiderable part in the government of
the ship. She had her husband's niece with her, a very pretty girl,
whom she used to make attend on her like a servant; and there were two
lady passengers, a mother and daughter, also Dutch, going to their
family. So, as may be supposed, we had plenty of ladies to make tea in
the cabin. Unfortunately none would agree whose duty it was to perform
that office; and though Miss Van Deck, the captain's niece, was ready
enough to do it, her aunt would not let her; and so we ran a great risk
of going without it altogether, till the captain volunteered in order to
keep concord within the bulkhead. As the disputes were carried on in
Dutch, I could only partly understand what was said; but the gestures of
the speakers made me fully comprehend the whole matter; especially as
the worthy master used to relieve his feelings with a running commentary
in English, and sundry winks of the eye next to me, and shrugs of the
shoulder, expressive of his resignation to his fate.

"My good frow is a very excellent woman," he used to say. "We all have
our tempers, and she has hers. It might be better--we none of us are
perfect. I took her for better and for worse, and so--"

He never finished the sentence, but shrugged his shoulders; and if he
was smoking, which he generally was when he spoke on this delicate
subject, he blew out a double quantity of vapour. His was true
philosophy: he was very fond of saying, "What we cannot cure, we must
endure, and hope for better times."

Although Captain Van Deck was a philosopher, he was not much of a
seaman, nor was his personal courage of first-rate order. He was only
perfectly confident when he had a coast he knew well on his weather
beam; and then he was rather apt to boast of his knowledge of seamanship
and navigation. Fortunately the first mate of the _Cowlitz_ was a
better seaman than the master, or she would not have been able to find
her way from one port to another even as well as she did.

The second mate was an Englishman of a respectable family. He had run
away to sea because he did not like learning or the discipline of
school; but he acknowledged to me that he had more to learn, and was
kept much more strictly, on board ship than on shore. His former ship
had been cast away on the coast of Java; when, finding