“Ah, I can remember the first time I fell in love, by tumbling down the main-hatchway! ’Twas when I was with Cook, out at the Sandwich Islands, where King Tommy-rammer and his wife came from. D’ye see, we had been refitting the rigging, and one of the ladies of Owyhee would be my doll-sinner; so she lent me a hand to tar the parcelling and pass the ball; and we were as kind and as loving as two tartle-doves. Well, I was walking near the hatch-way, when, somehow or other, I capsized, and Lowtowchinchow, in trying to save me, gave me a shove: I cotched hold of her, and away we went, Lowtowchinchow and I, down into the main-hold, like a couple of cherry-bums from the clouds. The hatchway was full of logs, and there we lay, like the babes in the wood, as natural as life. Howsomever, there were no bones broke, so they hauled us up again, and how could I help falling in love with her after that? Oh, we used to talk together, she in her lingo and I in mine, like two cats in a gutter. But what was the use on’t? the fore-topsail was sheeted home, and away we went; I promised to write to her by the first post, but she didn’t understand me, and so I forgot all about it next day. “In some parts of the world they have a way of marrying what they call Poll-Higgamy; but, Lord love you! it’s all a cheat, d’ye mind; for instead of having one Poll, they marry twenty; and only to go for to think of a man having twenty wives! Howsomever, it’s all a matter of fact; nay, some have more, and our parson used to read about Solomon having hundreds! How a solo-man like Solomon could manage to keep ’em all to their tethers in working ship, I can’t think for the life o’me; but he was a wise man, and understood all manner of tongues, and so, mayhap, he had a way of his own. Pretty dears! one’s enough in England. But I’ve seen ’em, in the hour of peril, in the day of battle and the storm, conquer all the weakness of their natur, and display such cool fortitude, such heroic devotion to their husbands, as would astonish you.