18. CHAPTER XVIII.
HE ENDEAVORS TO IMPROVE HIS MIND; AND TELLS OF ONE
BLUNT AND HIS DREAM-BOOK.
On the Sunday afternoon I spoke of, it was my watch
below, and I thought I would spend it profitably, in improving
my mind.
My bunk was an upper one; and right over the head of
it was a bull's-eye, or circular piece of thick ground glass,
inserted into the deck to give light. It was a dull, dubious
light, though; and I often found myself looking up anxiously
to see whether the bull's eye had not suddenly been put out;
for whenever any one trod on it, in walking the deck, it was
momentarily quenched; and what was still worse, sometimes
a coil of rope would be thrown down on it, and stay there
till I dressed myself and went up to remove it—a kind of
interruption to my studies which annoyed me very much,
when diligently occupied in reading.
However, I was glad of any light at all, down in that
gloomy hole, where we burrowed like rabbits in a warren;
and it was the happiest time I had, when all my messmates
were asleep, and I could lie on my back, during a forenoon
watch below, and read in comparative quiet and seclusion.
I had already read two books loaned to me by Max, to
whose share they had fallen, in dividing the effects of the
sailor who had jumped overboard. One was an account of
Shipwrecks and Disasters at Sea, and the other was a large
black volume, with Delirium Tremens in great gilt letters
on the back. This proved to be a popular treatise on the
subject of that disease; and I remembered seeing several
copies in the sailor book-stalls about Fulton Market, and
along South-street, in New York.
But this Sunday I got out a book, from which I expected
to reap great profit and sound instruction. It had been presented
to me by Mr. Jones, who had quite a library, and
took down this book from a top shelf, where it lay very
dusty. When he gave it to me, he said, that although I
was going to sea, I must not forget the importance of a good
education; and that there was hardly any situation in life,
however humble and depressed, or dark and gloomy, but one
might find leisure in it to store his mind, and build himself
up in the exact sciences. And he added, that though it did
look rather unfavorable for my future prospects, to be going
to sea as a common sailor so early in life; yet, it would no
doubt turn out for my benefit in the end; and, at any rate,
if I would only take good care of myself, would give me a
sound constitution, if nothing more; and that was not to be
undervalued, for how many very rich men would give all
their bonds and mortgages for my boyish robustness.
He added, that I need not expect any light, trivial work,
that was merely entertaining, and nothing more; but here I
would find entertainment and edification beautifully and harmoniously
combined; and though, at first, I might possibly
find it dull, yet, if I perused the book thoroughly, it would
soon discover hidden charms and unforeseen attractions; besides
teaching me, perhaps, the true way to retrieve the
poverty of my family, and again make them all well to do
in the world.
Saying this, he handed it to me, and I blew the dust off, and
looked at the back: “Smith's Wealth of Nations.” This
not satisfying me, I glanced at the title page, and found it was
an “Enquiry into the Nature and Causes” of the alleged
wealth of nations. But happening to look further down, I
caught sight of “Aberdeen,” where the book was printed;
and thinking that any thing from Scotland, a foreign country,
must prove some way or other pleasing to me, I thanked
Mr. Jones very kindly, and promised to peruse the volume
carefully.
So, now, lying in my bunk, I began the book methodically,
at page number one, resolved not to permit a few
flying glimpses into it, taken previously, to prevent me from
making regular approaches to the gist and body of the book,
where I fancied lay something like the philosopher's stone, a
secret talisman, which would transmute even pitch and tar
to silver and gold.
Pleasant, though vague visions of future opulence floated
before me, as I commenced the first chapter, entitled “Of
the causes of improvement in the productive power of labor.”
Dry as crackers and cheese, to be sure; and the chapter itself
was not much better. But this was only getting initiated;
and if I read on, the grand secret would be opened to me. So
I read on and on, about “wages and profits of labor,” without
getting any profits myself for my pains in perusing it.
Dryer and dryer; the very leaves smelt of saw-dust; till
at last I drank some water, and went at it again. But soon
I had to give it up for lost work; and thought that the old
backgammon board, we had at home, lettered on the back,
“The History of Rome,” was quite as full of matter, and
a great deal more entertaining. I wondered whether Mr.
Jones had ever read the volume himself; and could not help
remembering, that he had to get on a chair when he reached
it down from its dusty shelf; that certainly looked suspicious.
The best reading was on the fly leaves; and, on turning
them over, I lighted upon some half effaced pencil-marks to
the following effect: “Jonathan Jones, from his particular
friend Daniel Dods, 1798.” So it must have originally
belonged to Mr. Jones' father; and I wondered whether he
had ever read it; or, indeed, whether any body had ever
read it, even the author himself; but then authors, they
say, never read their own books; writing them, being enough
in all conscience.
At length I fell asleep, with the volume in my hand; and
never slept so sound before; after that, I used to wrap my
jacket round it, and use it for a pillow; for which purpose
it answered very well; only I sometimes waked up feeling
dull and stupid; but of course the book could not have been
the cause of that.
And now I am talking of books, I must tell of Jack Blunt
the sailor, and his Dream Book.
Jackson, who seemed to know every thing about all parts
of the world, used to tell Jack in reproach, that he was an
Irish Cockney. By which I understood, that he was an
Irishman born, but had graduated in London, somewhere
about Radcliffe Highway; but he had no sort of brogue
that I could hear.
He was a curious looking fellow, about twenty-five years
old, as I should judge; but to look at his back, you would
have taken him for a little old man. His arms and legs were
very large, round, short, and stumpy; so that when he had
on his great monkey-jacket, and sou'west cap flapping in
his face, and his sea boots drawn up to his knees, he looked
like a fat porpoise, standing on end. He had a round face,
too, like a walrus; and with about the same expression, half
human and half indescribable. He was, upon the whole, a
good-natured fellow, and a little given to looking at sea-life
romantically; singing songs about susceptible mermaids who
fell in love with handsome young oyster boys and gallant
fishermen. And he had a sad story about a man-of-war's-man
who broke his heart at Portsmouth during the late
war, and threw away his life recklessly at one of the quarter-deck
caronades, in the battle between the Guerriere and
Constitution; and another incomprehensible story about a
sort of fairy sea-queen, who used to be dunning a sea-captain
all the time for his autograph to boil in some eel soup, for a
spell against the scurvy.
He believed in all kinds of witch-work and magic; and had
some wild Irish words he used to mutter over during a calm
for a fair wind.
And he frequently related his interviews in Liverpool with
a fortune-teller, an old negro woman by the name of De
Squak, whose house was much frequented by sailors; and
how she had two black cats, with remarkably green eyes, and
nightcaps on their heads, solemnly seated on a claw-footed
table near the old goblin; when she felt his pulse, to tell what
was going to befall him.
This Blunt had a large head of hair, very thick and
bushy; but from some cause or other, it was rapidly turning
gray; and in its transition state made him look as if
he wore a shako of badger skin.
The phenomenon of gray hairs on a young head, had perplexed
and confounded this Blunt to such a degree that he
at last came to the conclusion it must be the result of the
black art, wrought upon him by an enemy; and that enemy,
he opined, was an old sailor landlord in Marseilles, whom
he had once seriously offended, by knocking him down in
a fray.
So while in New York, finding his hair growing grayer
and grayer, and all his friends, the ladies and others, laughing
at him, and calling him an old man with one foot in
the grave, he slipt out one night to an apothecary's, stated
his case, and wanted to know what could be done for him.
The apothecary immediately gave him a pint bottle of
something he called “Trafalgar Oil for restoring the hair,”
price one dollar; and told him that after he had used that
bottle, and it did not have the desired effect, he must try
bottle No. 2, called “Balm of Paradise, or the Elixir of
the Battle of Copenhagen.” These high-sounding naval
names delighted Blunt, and he had no doubt there must be
virtue in them.
I saw both bottles; and on one of them was an engraving,
representing a young man, presumed to be gray-headed,
standing in his night-dress in the middle of his chamber,
and with closed eyes applying the Elixir to his head, with
both hands; while on the bed adjacent stood a large bottle,
conspicuously labeled, “
Balm of Paradise.” It seemed
from the text, that this gray-headed young man was so smitten
with his hair-oil, and was so thoroughly persuaded of
its virtues, that he had got out of bed, even in his sleep;
groped into his closet, seized the precious bottle, applied its
contents, and then to bed again, getting up in the morning
without knowing any thing about it. Which, indeed,
was a most mysterious occurrence; and it was still more
mysterious, how the engraver came to know an event, of
which the actor himself was ignorant, and where there were
no bystanders.
Three times in the twenty-four hours, Blunt, while at
sea, regularly rubbed in his liniments; but though the first
bottle was soon exhausted by his copious applications, and
the second half gone, he still stuck to it, that by the time
we got to Liverpool, his exertions would be crowned with
success. And he was not a little delighted, that this gradual
change would be operating while we were at sea; so as not
to expose him to the invidious observations of people ashore;
on the same principle that dandies go into the country when
they purpose raising whiskers. He would often ask his ship-mates,
whether they noticed any change yet; and if so, how
much of a change? And to tell the truth, there was a
very great change indeed; for the constant soaking of his
hair with oil, operating in conjunction with the neglect of
his toilet, and want of a brush and comb, had matted his
locks together like a wild horse's mane, and imparted to it
a blackish and extremely glossy hue.
Besides his collection of hair-oils, Blunt had also provided
himself with several boxes of pills, which he had purchased
from a sailor doctor in New York, who by placards stuck on
the posts along the wharves, advertised to remain standing
at the northeast corner of Catharine Market, every Monday
and Friday, between the hours of ten and twelve in the
morning, to receive calls from patients, distribute medicines,
and give advice gratis.
Whether Blunt thought he had the dyspepsia or not, I
can not say; but at breakfast, he always took three pills
with his coffee; something as they do in Iowa, when the
bilious fever prevails; where, at the boarding-houses, they
put a vial of blue pills into the castor, along with the pepper
and mustard, and next door to another vial of toothpicks.
But they are very ill-bred and unpolished in the western
country.
Several times, too, Blunt treated himself to a flowing
bumper of horse salts (Glauber salts); for like many other
seamen, he never went to sea without a good supply of that
luxury. He would frequently, also, take this medicine in a
wet jacket, and then go on deck into a rain storm. But
this is nothing to other sailors, who at sea will doctor themselves
with calomel off Cape Horn, and still remain on duty.
And in this connection, some really frightful stories might
be told; but I forbear.
For a landsman to take salts as this Blunt did, it would
perhaps be the death of him; but at sea the salt air and
the salt water prevent you from catching cold so readily as
on land; and for my own part, on board this very ship,
being so illy-provided with clothes, I frequently turned into
my bunk soaking wet, and turned out again piping hot, and
smoking like a roasted sirloin; and yet was never the worse
for it; for then, I bore a charmed life of youth and health,
and was dagger-proof to bodily ill.
But it is time to tell of the Dream Book. Snugly hidden
in one corner of his chest, Blunt had an extraordinary looking
pamphlet, with a red cover, marked all over with astrological
signs and ciphers, and purporting to be a full and complete
treatise on the art of Divination; so that the most simple
sailor could teach it to himself.
It also purported to be the selfsame system, by aid of
which Napoleon Bonaparte had risen in the world from
being a corporal to an emperor. Hence it was entitled the
Bonaparte Dream Book; for the magic of it lay in the
interpretation of dreams, and their application to the fore-seeing
of future events; so that all preparatory measures
might be taken beforehand; which would be exceedingly
convenient, and satisfactory every way, if true. The
problems were to be cast by means of figures, in some
perplexed and difficult way, which, however, was facilitated
by a set of tables in the end of the pamphlet, something
like the Logarithm Tables at the end of Bowditch's Navigator.
Now, Blunt revered, adored, and worshiped this Bonaparte
Dream Book of his; and was fully persuaded that
between those red covers, and in his own dreams, lay all the
secrets of futurity. Every morning before taking his pills,
and applying his hair-oils, he would steal out of his bunk
before the rest of the watch were awake; take out his
pamphlet, and a bit of chalk; and then straddling his chest,
begin scratching his oily head to remember his fugitive
dreams; marking down strokes on his chest-lid, as if he were
casting up his daily accounts.
Though often perplexed and lost in mazes concerning the
cabalistic figures in the book, and the chapter of directions
to beginners; for he could with difficulty read at all; yet,
in the end, if not interrupted, he somehow managed to
arrive at a conclusion satisfactory to him. So that, as he
generally wore a good-humored expression, no doubt he must
have thought, that all his future affairs were working together
for the best.
But one night he started us all up in a fright, by springing
from his bunk, his eyes ready to start out of his head, and
crying, in a husky voice—“Boys! boys! get the benches
ready! Quick, quick!”
“What benches?” growled Max—“What's the matter?”
“Benches! benches!” screamed Blunt, without heeding
him, “cut down the forests, bear a hand, boys; the Day of
Judgment's coming!”
But the next moment, he got quietly into his bunk, and
laid still, muttering to himself, he had only been rambling in
his sleep.
I did not know exactly what he had meant by his
benches; till, shortly after, I overheard two of the sailors
debating, whether mankind would stand or sit at the Last
Day.
