of the ship when
mate and captain were absent. What a capital story, by the bye, Typee
tells us of one of this Bembo's whaling exploits! New Zealanders are
brave and bloodthirsty, and excellent harpooners, and they act up to the
South-Seaman's war-cry, "A dead whale or a stove boat!" There is a world
of wild romance and thrilling adventure in the occasional glimpses of
the whale fishery afforded us in Omoo; a strange picturesqueness and
piratical mystery about the lawless class of seamen engaged in it. Such
a portrait gallery as Typee makes out of the Julia's crew, beginning
with Chips and Bungs, the carpenter and cooper, the "Cods," or leaders
of the forecastle, and descending until he arrives at poor Rope Yarn, or
Ropey, as he was called, a stunted journeyman baker from Holborn, the
most helpless and forlorn of all land-lubbers, the butt and drudge of
the ship's company! A Dane, a Portuguese, a Finlander, a savage
from Hivarhoo, sundry English, Irish, and Americans, a daring
Yankee _beach-comber_, called Salem, and Sydney Ben, a runaway
ticket-of-leave-man, made up a crew much too weak to do any good in the
whaling way. But the best fellow on board, and by far the most
remarkable, was a disciple of Esculapius, known as Doctor Long-Ghost.
Jermin is a good portrait; so is Captain Guy; but Long-Ghost is a jewel
of a boy, a complete original, hit off with uncommon felicity. Nothing
is told us of his early life. Typee takes him up on board the Julia,
shakes hands with him in the last page of the book, and informs us that
he has never since seen or heard of him. So we become acquainted with
but a small section of the doctor's life; his subsequent adventures are
unknown, and, save a chance hint or two, his previous career is a
mystery, unfathomable as the Tahitian coast, where, within a biscuit's
toss of the coral shore, soundings there are none. Now and then he would
obscurely refer to days more palmy and prosperous than those spent on
board the Julia. But however great the contrast between his former
fortunes and his then lowly position, he exhibited much calm philosophy
and cheerful resignation. He was even merry and facetious, a practical
wag of the very first order, and as such a great favourite with the
whole ship's company, the captain excepted. He had arrived at Sydney in
an emigrant ship, had expended his resources, and entered as doctor on
board the Julia. All British whalers are bound to carry a medico, who is
trea