In the preceding chapter I described two of my companions of the
voyage and also the Captain of the brig. I will now give my readers
a portrait of the remaining one, George Fairfax. He was a young man
about nineteen, bold, daring, quick of temper, and quicker of speech.
He was nearly related to a Senator in Congress, and the Governor of
his native State. He was a good scholar in mathematics, and knew
something of navigation. He had been once to the West Indies as a
sort of supercargo in one of his uncle's vessels, and therefere had a
knowledge of the sea which none of us could boast of. In person he
was stout built, about the middle height, with a clear gray eye full of
decision and fire. There was in him something of the dare devil, although
he was by no means vicious. He had a high sense of his
own rights, and was very firmly resolved never to relinquish them to
any man.

The eldest son of Mr. Bedrick, Ned, or Edwin, had been in Harvard,
and left to accompany his father. He was about two and twenty, with
light flaxen hair, a very light, sandy complexion, full fleshy cheeks,
and small blue eyes, which were most of the time peering inquisitively
at you through a pair of gold mounted glasses. He was stoutly made,
with a slight roundness of the shoulders, dressed in black, and wore a
plain gold ring on his little finger. He knew Greek, he knew Latin,
he knew Spanish, he knew all languages. He was a great talker, very
vain, very conceited, very arrogant, very self-assuming, very much
wanting in natural common sense. He would have lorded it over each
of us if he could have done so. He tried it, but found that it would
not do. But I will not anticipate events.

His brother William was in his twentieth year, and his opposite in
tooks and character. He was a dark complexioned young man, with

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the blackest, sharpest eye ever set in a man's head. His hair was
black as a ravin's. He looked like a handsome young Turk. He had
a finely moulded figure, supple and athletic. His face expressed resolution
and wild daring. He looked like one who would engage heart
and hand in any reckless adventure. He was one whom it would
have been dangerous to have had for an enemy; yet who would prove
a fast friend.

Such then were the companions among whom my destiny had placed
me. The first fifteen days out every thing went on smoothly, excepting
the little cross-grained occurrences of the first day, already mentioned.
We had by this time got to know something of one another,
and fallen into a certain round of habits and employment for passing
the time. I studied navigation and kept a journal. Fairfax played
the flute, helped the sailors in the duty and made perpetual motion
machines out of shingles. Hewitt did nothing all day but pore over
his Spanish, forgetting the next day all he had learned the day before,
yet persevering against hope. Radsworth read and studied Spanish
and talked literature with the elder son of Mr. Bedrick. We all had
onr Spanish to look after, and the elder son was our teacher, and
daily we made more or less proficiency. I took kindly to the language,
and when I had mastered its chief difficulties I pursued it with
delight.

`Old Bedrick,' as we had got to denominate `the Foreign Merchant,
' passed his time mostly in the cabin writing and looking over
old accounts. He did not hesitate to call upon us to overhaul his
trunks and boxes and bring and carry for him precisely as if we were
his servants; but we had plenty of time on our hands and did not refuse
to obey him, though he might have asked his sons, who never did
any thing. If, by chance, he called on either of them to bring him
what he wanted, they would invariably pass the errand over to one of
us. We bore all this quietly before them, but in the retirement of our
steerage we did not fail to express our disapprobation and displeasure.
We had found ourselves treated rather as menials than the sons of gentlemen,
and our spirits rose against it. We consoled ourselves, however,
with the hope that after we reached Buenos Ayres things would
change and we should be treated as became our positions as Clerks in
the House of a Foreign Merchant! for, be it observed, we attached no
little credit to this distinction, regarding ourselves as quite a notch and
a little more above domestic clerks.

At length one day old Bedrick, whom we liked less and less the
more his character displayed itself before us and to us, called Hewitt
into the cabin and told him that he wished him to make his berth up
every morning and take care of hir state-room. As Hewitt was of a
quiet turn of temper and had a good deal of simplicity of character, the
old man doubtless thought that he would comply without a demurrer.
But he had no sooner proposed this menial service to him, than with
flashing eyes Hewitt responded to him so as to be heard distinctly by
me in the steerage, where I was engaged in sewing up a hole I had
torn in the knee of my trousers trying to get aloft one of the futtockshrouds.

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`Sir, I am no serving-man. I am astonished and amazed that you
should presume to make such a proposition to me, sir. Mr. Bedrick I
am on board this brig as a cabin passenger, and you put me into the
steerage. I yielded without a word. You have since called upon me
and my friends to do many things which your sons refused to do. I
look upon myself quite as good as they, and have quite as delicate
tingers. Sir, I consider myself your clerk. No clerk of yours shall
through me be so degraded as to become a bed maker. I have too
high a regard for you, sir, to suffer it. I hold your reputation in too
high consideration to have it said that Mr. Bedrick's clerks were nothing
more than servants. This, sir, is my objection—my sole objection
to complying with your request!'

When Hewitt had ended this speech which he had commenced in
anger but ended with a smile under his tongue, he went on deck leaving
the old man quite thunderstruck.

`What a set of graceless rascallions I have got into my hands, or
rather that they have got me into theirs,' he muttered. `I am half a
mind to horse-whip them all round!'

This speech we did not hear, but it was reported to us the same night
by the colored steward, who was our friend, we having clubbed together
and paid him a quarter of a dollar spiece one sunny morning as
a bonus of more to follow if he behaved himself.

Hewitt had no sooner got on deck than Ned, our Spanish master,
met him and looking very pale with rage demanded to know why he
had dared to insult his father.

`Your father has insulted me,' answered Henricus firmly.

`You are all a set of—

`Of what?' I demanded poking my head up from the steerage hatch,
for I had sprang up to go to the deck when I heard Hewitt leave the
cabin. As I put the interrogative demand I caught his eye and his
tongue faltered.

`No matter what,' he added. `If I was father I would make you—'

`What?' repeated Fairfax sternly.

He made no answer, but turning on his heel descended into the
cabin. Bill soon followed him, and there they remained a long while,
doubtless discussing us. This little event originated a feeling of mutual
suspicion and ill will between us; and placed us in the position
of two antagonistic parties. For several days the old man scarcely
spoke a word to either of us and then only with angry brevity, while
his eldest born maintained a dignified silence. He even refused to
hear our Spanish lessons; but as we had mastered our pronunciation
we got along very well with our grammars without his aid.

For nearly a week this state of things continued, when there came
on a terrific storm. The brig labored heavily for many hours, and at
length carried away her main-topgallant mast with the yard and sail.
The sea broke over us with a clear arch, and on sounding the well
we found we had ten inches of water in the hold. This alarming state
of things called all our energies forth. The water was increasing, and
we knew that if the storm lasted twelve hours longer we should go to the
bottom. All the hands were employed about the decks or loft, and we

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were called upon to man the brakes of the pumps. I took the handle
with old Mr. Bedrick and Hewitt. Fairfax worked a brake with
Spanish Bedrick, as we called the eldest son, and this contiguity of
labor with the mutual danger did wonders towards removing the illfeeling
which had sprung up between us. The fear of death destroyed
all enmity, and kind words took the place of contention. The leak
was finally discovered and stopped, and the storm abaiting with the
rising sun, we were relieved from the apprehension of going to the
bottom of the ocean with the life-blood flowing warmly in our veins
and our hearts beating strong with health.

The storm was a true pacificator, and for some days all went on
smoothly. We were on good terms with one another; our Spanish
lessons were pursued with industry; we played at draughts with the
old gentleman, and backgammon with Spanish Ned.

As we approached the Southern latitudes the weather became delightful.
There was a purity in the atmosphere wholly unknown to me
before. The air was soft, and it was a pleasure to inhale it. We had
run from Boston nearly a due Easterly course until we came near the
Western Islands, when we struck the trade winds and carried them
with us down to within three degrees of the equator. Here they died
away, or came only at fitful intervals, accompanied by squalls and torrents
of rain. Here, for the first time, we understood what a calm
was. When within about a degree of the line, we were deserted by
every wind. For several days not a zephr ruffled the glassy mirror of
the deep. It rolled its long polished billows with a ceaseless swell
upon which we were gently rocked as a gem upon a maiden's bosom
is moved undulatingly upward and downward. The sun was intensely
burning, feeling like a furnace close above our heads. The decks were
so heated that it burned the feet through the sole of the shoe. All
around us was the shining, flashing plain of the slumbering ocean; for
though there may be no wind the sea forever heaves its great heart, as
the heart of a man asleep, nor ceases to rise nor fall. Our sails hung
idly from the yards, and the sailors slept in the shade or indolently
busied their fingers about some light work. At night the sun would
go down in a sea of liquid crystal and rise in the morning from the
same unruffled deep. I was fully able to realize the truth of the description
of Coleridge's cal ned ship in his `Ancient Mariner;' for
we lay day after day,
`Like a painted ship upon a painted ocean.'

The only relief we had was in occasional showers, which came upon
us without wind. The rain fell literally in sheets Such descending
floods as we experienced must be seen to be appreciated. The clouds
poured out their treasures with the abundance and force of a cascade.
The sound upon the decks was an incessant roar. The rain drops, in
many instances, were so large and close that they combined in their
fall. and came down in the visible form of flakes of water like transparent
sheets of glass many inches broad. These showers would last
usually from half an hour to two hours, and then pass away as suddenly

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as they came, leaving us to the full power of the fiery equatorial sun.
We varied our monotonous life as well as we could, though before we
had been five days becalmed we had nearly exhausted all our resources,
except quarrelling, which at sea on such occasions, is a never failing
resource for the listless and self-wearied, But Mr. Bedrick seemed
disposed to keep the peace, and conciliate us, and his sons, finding we
were not to be bullied or intimidated, treated us with that degree of
consideration to which we thought ourselves entitled, clerks though
we were to their father. We sometimes went into the sea barbing,
stationing one aloft to keep good look-out for sharks, whose dorsal fin
can be seen a great distance, cleaning the surface ere they approach.
This sea-bathing along side the brig, hundreds of miles from land,
was a novelty, and we enjoyed it greatly. We also amused ourselves
in hanging on the end of the fore studdensail boom and darting the
harpoon into the golden dolphins as they glided slowly past beneath
us. Sometimes a family of porpoises would play across our bows, one
of which was speared and taken on board. I is flesh was served up as
a `rarity,' and was very much like that of a wild hog. Sometimes, at
night, flying fish flew aboard. Hewitt's chief amusement was in fishing
after mother Cary's chickens with a bit of bread concealing the
point of a pin-hook; but success was not commensurate with his
praiseworthy perseverence.