The ship is not to sail till the next day; the crew are not yet aboard; there is no mess, and Redburn has no money. He passes a wretched night in his evil-smelling bunk, and next morning is crawling about the deck, weak from hunger, when he is accosted by the first mate, who curses him for a lubber, asks his name, swears it is too long to be handy, rebaptizes him by that of _Buttons_, and sets him to clean out the pig-pen, and grease the main-topmast. Having accomplished these savoury duties, and narrowly escaped falling overboard from his unwonted elevation, Redburn is ordered to the quarterdeck, where the men are divided into watches, and he falls to the lot of his friend the first mate, who tries hard to get rid of him to Mr Rigs, the second mate; but Mr Rigs refuses the tyro, even as a free gift. Redburn now gets sea-sick, and, when ordered on deck to stand the first night-watch, from eight o'clock to midnight, he, feeling qualmish, requests one of the sailors to make his excuses very civilly to the chief mate, for that he thinks he will go below and spend the night in his bunk. The sailor, a good-natured Greenlander, laughs at his simplicity, and doctors him with a canikin of rum and some ship biscuits, which enable him to get through his watch. Minute incidents of this kind, reflections, reminiscences, and thoughts of home, occupy many chapters; and, at times, one is inclined to think they are dwelt upon at too great length: but, as before hinted, it is necessary to do something to fill two volumes. A slight inconsistency strikes us in this first portion of the book. Redburn, a sharp enough lad on shore, and who, it has been seen, is altogether precocious in experience of the world's disappointments, seems converted, by the first sniff of salt water, into as arrant a simpleton as ever made mirth in a cockpit. Mr Melville must surely have had Peter Simple in his head, when describing "Buttons" at his first deck-washing. "The water began to splash about all over the decks, and I began to think I should surely get my feet wet, and catch my death of cold. So I went to the chief mate and told him I thought I would just step below, till this miserable wetting was over; for I did not have any waterproof boots, and an aunt of mine had died of consumption. But he only roared out for me to get a broom, and go to scrubbing, or he would prove a worse consumption to me than ever got hold of my poor aunt." Now Redburn, from what has previously been seen of him, was evidently not the lad to care a rush about wet soles, or even about a thorough ducking. On the Hudson river steamer, he had voluntarily walked the deck in a dreary storm till soaked through; and his first night on board the Highlander had been passed uncomplainingly in wet clothes. He has borne hunger and thirst and other disagreeables most manfully, and the impression given of him is quite that of a stubborn hardy fellow. So that this