Adventures of the Ojibbeway and Ioway Indians in England, France, and Belgium; Vol. 1 (of 2): being Notes of Eight Years' Travels and Residence in Europe with his North American Indian Collection — John Shaqi
Adventures of the Ojibbeway and Ioway Indians in England, France, and Belgium; Vol. 1 (of 2): being Notes of Eight Years' Travels and Residence in Europe with his North American Indian CollectionCatlin, George
History
Adventures of the Ojibbeway and Ioway Indians in England, France, and Belgium; Vol. 1 (of 2): being Notes of Eight Years' Travels and Residence in Europe with his North American Indian Collection
Catlin, George
England -- Description and travel; France -- Description and travel; Indians of North America
"Good God!" was exclaimed and echoed from one end of the ship's deck to
the other; "the grizly bears are out! down with the hatches--down the
hatches!" The scrambling that here took place to reach the cabins below
can only be justly known to each actor who performed his part in his
own way; and of these there were many. Some descended headlong, some
sidewise, and others rolled down; and every one with a ghastly glance
back upon the one behind him, as a grizly bear, of course, that was to
begin his "chawing" the next moment.
When the scrambling was all over, and the hatches all safe, all in the
cabin were obliged to smile for a moment, even in the midst of the
alarm, at the queer position and man[oe]uvres of a plump little Irish
woman who had slipped down the wrong hatchway by accident, and left her
"other half" to spend a night of celibacy, and of awful forebodings,
in the steerage, where she would have gone, but to which her own
discretion as well as the united voices of the cabin passengers decided
her not to attempt to make her way over the deck during the night.
The passengers, both fore and aft, were now all snugly housed for
the rest of the night, and the captain's smothered voice through his
trumpet, to his hands aloft, and the stamping of the men on deck, while
handling the ropes and shifting the sails, were all caught by our open
ears, and at once construed into assaults and dreadful conflicts with
the grizly bears on deck.
In the midst of these conjectures some one of the passengers screamed
and sprang from near the stairway entering the cabin, when it was
discovered, to the thrilling amazement of all, that one of the bears
had pawed open the hatchway, and was descending into the cabin! The
ladies' salon, beyond the cabin, was the refuge to which the instant
rush was making, when the always good and musical sound of the
captain's voice was recognized. "Why! you don't think I'm a grizly
bear, do you?" The good fellow! he didn't intend to frighten anybody.
He had just raised the hatch and came down to get a little breath and
a "drop to drink." He is as unlike to a grizly bear as any one else in
the world, both in looks and in disposition; but he happened to have on
for the occasion a black oil-cloth hood or cap, which was tied under
the chin; and a jacket covered with long fur on the outside, making his
figure (which was of goodly size, and which just filled the gangway),
with a little of the lively imagination belonging to such moments, look
the counterpart of a grizly bear. "Where's Catlin?" said he; "damn the
bears!" "Are they out?" cried the passengers all together. "Out?--yes;
they have eaten one man already, and another was knocked overboard
with a handspike; he was mistaken for one of the bears. We are all in
a mess on deck--it's so dark we can't see each other--the men are all
aloft in the rigging. Steward! give me a glass of brandy-and-water--the
ship must be managed, and I must go on deck. Keep close below here, and
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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