small of their backs, and gave them the appearance of
Chinese mandarins, or Turkish pachas of a single tail. These tails
were their pets the only ornaments about their persons for which they
manifested any interest. This pride in their queues was the weak point
in their characters. Every Sunday they performed on each other the
operation of manipulating the pendulous ornaments, straightening them
out like magnified marlinspikes, and binding them with ribbons or
rope-yarns, tastily fastened at the extremity by a double bow knot.

Queues, in those days, were worn on the land as well as on the sea, and
were as highly prized by the owners. On the land, they were harmless
enough, perhaps, and seldom ungratefully interfered with the comfort of
their benefactors or lured them into scrapes. On shipboard the case
was different, and they sometimes proved not only superfluous but
troublesome.

On our homeward passage a case occurred which illustrated the absurdity
of wearing a queue at sea a fashion which has been obsolete for many
years. A gale of wind occurred on the coast, and the crew were ordered
aloft to reef the fore-topsail. Jim Bilton, with his queue snugly
clubbed and tucked away beneath his pea-jacket, was first on the yard,
and passed the weather ear-ring; but, unfortunately, the standing
rigging had recently been tarred, and his queue, escaping from bondage,
was blown about, the sport of the wind, and after flapping against the
yard, took a "round turn" over the lift, and stuck fast. Jim was in an
awkward position. He could not immediately disengage his queue, and
he could not willingly or conveniently leave it aloft. All hands but
himself were promptly on deck, and ready to sway up the yard. The mate
shouted to him in the full strength of his lungs to "Bear a hand and lay
in off the yard," and unjustly berated him as a "lubber," while the poor
fellow was tugging away, and working with might and main, to disengage
his tail from the lift, in which he at length succeeded, but not without
the aid of his jackknife.

I was greatly troubled during this passage by the impure character
of the water. I had been taught to place a high value on water as a
beverage; but when we had been three weeks at sea, and had entered the
warm latitudes, on knocking a bung from one of the water casks on the
quarter-deck, there issued an odor of "an ancient and fish-like" nature,
which gave offence to my olfactories. On tasting the water, I f