en," he said, "I keep
up my note-books, writing in them at such and such hours from what I
have been reading; and I include in these my scrap-books." These were
very curious indeed. He had six or eight, of different subjects. There
was one of History, one of Natural Science, one which he called "Odds
and Ends." But they were not merely books of extracts from newspapers.
They had bits of plants and ribbons, shells tied on, and carved scraps
of bone and wood, which he had taught the men to cut for him, and they
were beautifully illustrated. He drew admirably. He had some of the
funniest drawings there, and some of the most pathetic, that I have
ever seen in my life. I wonder who will have Nolan's scrap-books.

Well, he said his reading and his notes were his profession, and that
they took five hours and two hours respectively of each day. "Then,"
said he, "every man should have a diversion as well as a profession.
My Natural History is my diversion." That took two hours a day more.
The men used to bring him birds and fish, but on a long cruise he had
to satisfy himself with centipedes and cockroaches and such small
game. He was the only naturalist I ever met who knew anything about
the habits of the house-fly and the mosquito. All those people can
tell you whether they are _Lepidoptera_ or _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 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 said that he read beautifully.

My own acquaintance with Philip Nolan began six or eight years after
the English 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