Two Years Before The Mast
contributor: Eric Lease Morgan (Infomotions, Inc.)
creator: Dana, Richard Henry
date: 0000-00-00
extent: 903845
format: text/plain
language: en
publisher: Eris Etext Project
rights: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/GPL/2.0/
source: 1
subject: captain
subject: ship
subject: time
subject: man
subject: day
subject: crew
subject: mast
subject: richard
subject: henry
subject: dana
subject: chapter
subject: departure
subject: fourteenth
subject: august
subject: fixed
subject: sailing
subject: brig
subject: pilgrim
subject: voyage
subject: boston
subject: round
subject: cape
subject: horn
subject: western
subject: coast
subject: north
subject: america
subject: american
subject: literature
type: text
local mirror: dana-two-378.txt
concordance: http://infomotions.com/alex/cgi-bin/concordance.pl
plain html: dana-two-378.htm
sort title: Two Years Before The Mast
full text: 1840 TWO YEARS BEFORE THE MAST by Richard Henry Dana CHAPTER I DEPARTURE The fourteenth of August was the day fixed upon for the sailing of the brig Pilgrim on her voyage from Boston round Cape Horn to the western coast of North America. As she was to get under weigh early in the afternoon, I made my appearance on board at twelve o'clock, in full sea-rig, and with my chest, containing an outfit for a two or three years' voyage, which I had undertaken from a determination to cure, if possible, by an entire change of life, and by a long absence from books and study, a weakness of the eyes, which had obliged me to give up my pursuits, and which no medical aid seemed likely to cure. The change from the tight dress coat, silk cap and kid gloves of an undergraduate at Cambridge, to the loose duck trowsers, checked shirt and tarpaulin hat of a sailor, though somewhat of a transformation, was soon made, and I supposed that I should pass very well for a jack tar. But it is impossible to deceive the practised eye in these matters; and while I supposed myself to be looking as salt as Neptune himself, I was, no doubt, known for a landsman by every one on board as soon as I hove in sight. A sailor has a peculiar cut to his clothes, and a way of wearing them which a green hand can never get. The trowsers, tight round the hips, and thence hanging long and loose round the feet, a superabundance of checked shirt, a low-crowned, well varnished black hat, worn on the back of the head, with half a fathom of black ribbon hanging over the left eye, and a peculiar tie to the black silk neckerchief, with sundry other minutiae, are signs, the want of which betray the beginner, at once. Besides the points in my dress which were out of the way, doubtless my complexion and hands were enough to distinguish me from the regular salt, who, with a sunburnt cheek, wide step, and rolling gait, swings his bronzed and toughened hands athwartships, half open, as though just ready to grasp a rope. "With …