The men are a far better lot than we expected to find in a Cape-Horner, and most of them are on the sunny side of thirty-five, though there are two or three old hulks among them. About three o’clock the drunken sailors were hauled out of the forecastle, and they were a sight as they yawed around, falling over ropes and capstan-bars. As the foretop-gallant-sail was being sheeted home, the captain went down on the main deck to have a look about the ship, when to our intense astonishment a young tow-headed sailor, the drunkest of the lot, lurched up to him, and, leaning against the skipper’s shoulder, poured some tale of woe into his ear. Now, Captain Scruggs doesn’t look like a particularly mild-tempered person, and when the man held out a ponderous fist to shake hands with him, we didn’t know what was going to happen. But the captain gravely gave him his hand and nodded his head, while the man lurched forward to his companions. At six o’clock Captain Scruggs said, “I don’t believe in giving grog to sailors at any time, but some of the men are feeling pretty well used up from the hard work after a long drunk ashore, so I’m going to give ’em a bracer.” Forthwith a bucketful of diluted Jamaica rum was served out at the cabin door, each man as his pannikin was filled nodding his thanks to the steward. One of them, however, a very sinister-looking man, tried to snatch the bucket away from the little steward; but the skipper caught him at the moment, and then for the first time we heard Captain Scruggs’s deep-sea voice. The man was so scared by the hurricane of words hurled at him that he dropped the bucket, which luckily didn’t capsize, and, pulling his front hair to the skipper, insisted that it wasn’t he “who was doin’ the funny business.” Our first night on board began silently and peacefully, and we turned in early after the turmoil of the day. +May 12+ “The ship was cheered, the harbor cleared, Merrily did we drop, Below the kirk, below the hill, below the Light-house top.” When we reached the deck this morning, the lofty Navesink highlands had vanished beyond the horizon and we floated alone upon the ocean. The day came on with a fresh southerly wind and a lively sea. My wife went to bed last night sea-sick, and this morning she was very ill and wholly given over to dismal reflections. The motion was quite severe, and I myself felt far happier on deck than below. Indeed, it generally takes me three or four days to grow fully accustomed to being at sea. The captain evidently saw that I wasn’t feeling particularly robust, so he instilled life into me by asking whether I wouldn’t like to keep the meteorological record during the voyage, the ship being provided with blanks for the purpose by the Hydrographic Office at Washington. This will be very interesting work for me, and I feel quite important.