t's westward
from the pole' to point my destined path, and furnish food for
speculative thought; and, after sliding five or six times up and
down some twenty feet of wet deck, I groped my way to the cabin.
The captain was not on board, and I found myself a stranger among
men. Of all gregarious animals man is the most tardy in getting
acquainted: meet them for the first time in a jury-box, a
stage-coach, or the cabin of a ship, and they always remind me of
a little lot of specimen sheep from different flocks, put together
for the first time in the same pen; they walk about and round and
round, with all their heads and tails in different directions, and
not a baa! escapes them; but in half an hour some crooked-pated
bell-wether perhaps, gives a south-down a little dig in the ribs,
and this example is followed by a Merino; and before the ending of
the fair their heads are all one way, and you'll find them
bleating together in full chorus. Now, in the case of man, a
snuff-box instead of the sheep's horn, is an admirable
introduction; for, if he refuses to take a pinch, he'll generally
give you a sufficient reason why he does not, and that's an
excellent chance to form, perhaps, a lasting friendship, but to
scrape an acquaintance to a certainty; and if he takes it perhaps
he'll sneeze, and you can come in with your 'God bless you!' and
so on, to a conversation about the plague in '66, or the yellow
fever on some other occasion, and can 'bury your friends by
dozens,' and 'escape yourself by a miracle,' very pleasantly for
half an hour. But in this instance it was a total failure: one
said 'I don't use it;' another shook his head, and the third
emptied his mouth of half a pint of spittle, and said 'he thought
it bad enough to chaw!''

When the vessel is fairly at sea, the social ice is gradually broken. It
being just after the war, the _rationale_ of the following brief dialogue
between Mr. COWELL and the mate will be readily understood:

'The mate was a weather-beaten, humorous 'sea-monster;' upon asking
his name, he replied:

''If you're an Englishman and I once tell you my name, you'll never
forget it.'

''I don't know that,' I replied; 'I'm very unfortunate in
remembering names.'

''Oh, never mind!' said he, with a peculiarly sly, comical look; 'if
you're an Englishman you'll never forget m