“Why, d’ye see, Captain Vangs,” says bold Jack, “I’m as good a helmsman as ever put hand to spoke; but none of us can steer the old lady now. We can’t keep her full and bye, sir: watch her ever so close, she will fall off; and then, sir, when I put the helm down so gently and try like to coax her to the work, she won’t take it kindly, but will fall round off again; and it’s all because she knows the land is under the lee, sir, and she won’t go any more to windward.” Ay, and why should she, Jack? didn’t every one of her stout timbers grow on shore, and hasn’t she sensibilities as well as we? Poor old ship! Her very looks denote her desires: how deplorable she appears! The paint on her sides, burnt up by the scorching sun, is puffed out and cracked. See the weeds she trails along with her, and what an unsightly bunch of these horrid barnacles has formed about her stern-piece; and every time she rises on a sea, she shows her copper torn away or hanging in jagged strips. Poor old ship! I say again: for six months she has been rolling and pitching about, never for one moment at rest. But courage, old lass, I hope to see thee soon within a biscuit’s toss of the merry land, riding snugly at anchor in some green cove, and sheltered from the boisterous winds. “Hurrah, my lads! It’s a settled thing; next week we shape our course to the Marquesas!” The Marquesas! What strange visions of outlandish things does the very name spirit up! Lovely houris—cannibal banquets—groves of cocoa-nuts—coral reefs—tattooed chiefs—and bamboo temples; sunny valleys planted with bread-fruit trees—carved canoes dancing on the flashing blue waters—savage woodlands guarded by horrible idols—_heathenish rites and human sacrifices_. Such were the strangely jumbled anticipations that haunted me during our passage from the cruising ground. I felt an irresistible curiosity to see those islands which the olden voyagers had so glowingly described.