It is remarkable how good the eating is on board; for although on many ships the meat, flour, etc., are often the best that can be bought, everything is frequently spoiled by villainous cookery; even our coffee is as good as people generally have ashore. Captain Scruggs told us before we sailed that he was a dyspeptic, and said that he had to be very particular about what he ate. On this we somewhat callously congratulated ourselves; and, sure enough, the skipper’s stomachic infirmities have insured us none but the best of everything. It might be here remarked that we brought absolutely nothing with us in the way of provisions. It is customary for captains to ascertain what their prospective passengers’ preferences are before storing the ship; and, as I knew the company who had the vitualling of the ship, it was certain that nothing better could be bought. Indeed, the average ship in these days carries such an abundance and variety of wholesome food, that unless one cared to take along such absurd edibles as patés and the like, the food question can very well take care of itself. The mate, Leander Goggins, entertained us at breakfast this morning with some more or less remarkable conversation. It really seems impossible that a man can hate his native country as he does; and he gave an affirmative reply to Scott’s famous question,-- “Breathes there the man with soul so dead Who never to himself hath said, ‘This is my own, my native land?’” The skipper jollies him up constantly about his still being an Englishman in spite of his citizen’s papers, and this morning the mate couldn’t withstand it any longer, and delivered himself as follows, with great intensity: “Cap’n Scruggs, sir, I thank God I left Hengland w’en I were eleven year hold, sir. I tell you, cap’n, and you too, sir, it ain’t no fit country for a man to call himself a native of. A pore man carn’t take off ’is ’at to a lord, sir; ho, no; ’e’s got to bow and sheer and pull ’is front ’air; and if hit’s a lady, why ’e mustn’t look at all.” This was enough to disgust any one with him; and he made so strange an appearance with his weather-stained face, bleary little eyes, and heavily veined temples, that I almost shouted when he finished. A great slashing scar on his chin, when his stubby beard permits it to be seen, doesn’t add much to his personal charms. Later on he began to talk about Captain Bob Waterman, perhaps the most unpleasantly notorious ship-master in the old New York-California trade. The mate averred that he had sailed with “Cap’n Bob,” and he added that the yarn about Cap’n Bob’s having cast off the lee main-brace in a Cape Horn squall one night, jerking half a dozen men into the sea just because he didn’t like them, he had always considered as probable. “’E shot ’is own child, you know,” pleasantly added Mr. Goggins, as though he were mentioning the killing of a chicken.