But although the foremast hand finds it impossible to be fair; although he, taken collectively, regards all owners as blood-suckers, and all officers as traitors or tyrants, every one of his well-wishers--of whom I claim to be one of the warmest--can, and do, find many excuses for him. Please to consider his position. For the great majority of his days he lives in the utmost ignorance of what is going on in the world. He is like the inhabitants of some undiscovered country where-into none of the latter-day adjuncts of civilization had penetrated. From year's end to year's end he never reads a newspaper, at least not until it is long out of date. During his quiet voyaging from one side of the world to the other, the whole political aspect of the planet may be changed, but he knows nor recks nothing of it. Speak to him of the rise and fall of governments, the strife of parties, the hubbub of a general election, and he will look upon you as one that talks in an unknown tongue. To those of his class who read, supposing that they possess the right books, this aloofness from the world-movement is all to the good: they can enter into the spirit of those giants of literature as no other men can. Bringing to the consideration of immense topics minds unfettered and undisturbed by the petty squabbling and sordid tricks of politics, whether Imperial or local, they enjoy their reading as few other men do. One of my chief delights when I was before the mast was to sit on deck in the brilliant tropical moonlight, or on a lotus-eating evening before the dark had arrived, and read aloud to the assembled watch. I had no inattentive listeners. Hardly breathing, except to keep their pipes aglow, they drank in every syllable, their long acquaintance with all sorts of hybrid variants of English enabling them to catch the sense, even if they were unable to grasp the full meaning of the sonorous sentences. For I never would read them rubbish, or what I considered rubbish. I carried with me for years three volumes of the Chandos Classics, the "Odyssey," the "Æneid," and Longfellow. Shakespeare I always had, and I should be puzzled indeed to say which of the two, the "Odyssey" or Shakespeare, they relished most. They did not favour discussion of the books read very much; they were content to enjoy. I grieve to say that their discussions were usually most trivial and unprofitable. They would start an argument upon some question about which none of them knew anything, and carry it on with the utmost fierceness and heat, even unto blows. Once I used to intervene with some reliable information, but I found that when, in reply to the query, "Who told you that?" I admitted that I had learned it from books, I was thenceforward scouted as a purveyor of second-hand information, and I desisted.