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 someone
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 boat with him, and in this
boat it was my luck to go.

When we got there, it was such a scene as you seldom see, and never
want to. Nastiness beyond account, and chaos run loose in the midst of
the nastiness. There were not a great many of the negroes; but by way
of making what there were understand that they were free, Vaughan had
had their handcuffs, and ankle-cuffs knocked off, and, for
convenience's sake, was putting them upon the rascals of the
schooner's crew. The negroes were, most of them, out of the hold, and
swarming all round the dirty deck, with a central throng surrounding
Vaughan and addressing him in every dialect, and _patois_ of a
dialect, from the Zulu click up to the Parisian of Beledeljereed.

As we came on deck, Vaughan looked down from a hogshead, on which he
had mounted in desperation, and said--

"For God's love, is there anybody who can make these wretches
understand something? The men gave them rum, and that did not quiet
them. I knocked that big fellow down twice, and that did not soothe
him. And then I talked Choctaw to all of them together; and I'll be
hanged if they understood that as well as they understood the
English."

Nolan sai