The captain was glad to get the cabbages, immature as they must have been, and they were fed to the crew in the next few days. There was a sort of oily essence in them, and they had a peculiar taste; but it was not unpleasant, once you were used to it, and the men had been without green vegetables for so long that they would have welcomed anything. The effect upon their health was marked. Whenever we landed upon Desolation we laid in a supply of cabbages, and as long as we were in that neighborhood the crew were in the best of condition. We sailed before sunrise the next morning, and began our long beat to the westward. The weather was still bad, with half a gale of wind, and fog, mist, or rain. In fact, the weather in the neighborhood of Kerguelen is uniformly bad, as far as my experience goes. We did not have a dozen days of clear sunshine in all the time we were there. {254} Not long after this Captain Nelson got into a towering rage against Smith for insubordination, and against Mr. Snow for permitting it. Smith’s insubordination was, in itself, a small matter. He had failed to carry out some order of Mr. Snow’s, but had done something else instead. What he had done was just as good as what he had been ordered to do—it may have been better—but on a ship orders are orders, and must be obeyed. Mr. Snow, instead of insisting that his orders be obeyed, had first stormed and blustered, and then weakly pleaded with Smith. As far as I could gather, Smith had paid no attention to his storming, had smiled at his blustering, and disregarded his pleading, but had gone on with whatever he was doing. He had done it very well, and in a smart and seamanlike manner. There was no fault to be found with him on that count, but no shipmaster can pass over such rank and obvious disobedience. I had never seen Captain Nelson in a towering rage before, and I witnessed it but once again. Twice is once too many. When he was in such a rage he was quiet—ominously quiet, although he was always a quiet man; his mouth became a straight, thin line half hidden by his beard, and his eyes were cold and hard. He summoned Smith to the cabin and asked him what he had to say for himself. I was not present, but the quarters on a whaleship are not large, and the partitions are not sound-proof. I could imagine, easily enough, the captain’s eyes boring through Smith, and Smith’s opaque, china-blue eyes gazing innocently at the captain; for Smith, in such an encounter, was Captain Nelson’s equal. In education and breeding he was superior, and I had no doubt that his experience of clashes of the kind was far greater than the captain’s; but Captain Nelson’s mental processes were not devious, as Smith’s were. He knew where he was going, and went by the most direct path. If he found anything in his way he smashed it. His intentions were good, and he {255} had the authority, and he meant to maintain it; this above all things.