The Dock.
"Have we a Ritualist among us?" whispered the Vice to the Cook, with a face full of horror.
"Ye—es," replied the Cook, reluctantly, "but don't think too hardly of the poor fellow. Editors must have some sort of religious belief, you know—they're human, like the rest of us—and how can they reconcile their practice to any thing but a religion of mere forms? What would religion be, if it did not provide for every man's own peculiar infirmities?"
The Vice eyed the Commodore with abating horror, nevertheless he began to talk Baptist doctrine to him. He even, to arouse his faculties to the utmost, strode up and down the shore warbling to himself (so the Purser declared) something like this:
"Baptist, Baptist is my style, Baptist born was I. I've been baptized in the Baptist way And Baptist will I die."
But the Commodore was obdurate, and intimated that the Vice's experience in upsetting from a canoe had something to do with his denominational preference; things had to go according to law in newspaper offices, he said; the newspaper was the highest embodiment of human intellect, and so he reasoned, analogically, that men had no higher model to which to conform religion. The Vice sighed and determined to convert the Commodore—at a more convenient season.
The calm and heat continued, and no one was rude enough to make suggestions to the Commodore about starting. Indeed, the Purser remembered that he had brought a hammock, which until now he had forgotten. It was one of the most remarkable hammocks in the world—woven of silk by an Italian sailor—wouldn't the Commodore just try it? The Commodore accepted the proffer in gracious spirit; then the Cook remembered that the Commodore had never tried the wonderful, the priceless Brazilian tobacco, and there could be no fitter place than a hammock in which to sample it. The general result was that the Commodore occupied the hammock until the Cook announced dinner, and even then he arose with noticeable reluctance.
After dinner the breeze sprang up again, and as it wafted clouds of dust into the eyes, faces and hair of the expedition, as well as upon their garments, still damp with honest sweat, every one hailed with joy the order to sail. Besides, the dinner had been a mere lunch, and as the largest town on the river was but a few miles distant, the Cook suggested that an excellent dinner might be procured there at a quaint little French inn which he had visited in other days. This suggestion led to a lively race, which as usual in such cases was won by the Cook.[7] Whether beating or beaten, however, the pleasure of spreading all sails and making the best possible time in a good wind, was more than sufficient reward for all the effort put forth. With a boat fourteen feet long, and weighing, all rigging, spars, personal property, stores, etc., included, a scant hundred and fifty pounds, yet carrying fifty square feet of canvas, the canoeist has to exert to the uttermost his clearness of vision, nicety of touch (at the helm) weather wisdom, and balancing ability. He is himself his own ballast and the principal portion of the cargo. The shifting of five pounds of weight would compel a capsize, and the slightest flaw, carelessly caught, would even more certainly induce the same undesirable result. To keep all dead weight as far as possible below the water line, the navigator sits in the bottom of his boat, his back resting against a small board which, in turn, bears upon the after thwart or bulkhead. In one hand he holds the sheet of his mainsail; if he steers with a rudder, he holds one tiller rope in the same hand, and the other in the remaining digits. If he steers with a paddle, which is for several reasons the preferable mode, he holds the paddle with the hand unoccupied by the sheet; there is thus a steady strain upon both arms, and this strain is also a perfect brace. Some canoeists work the tiller with the feet, and this when properly carried out is a very convenient mode, but not every one who has tried it succeeds in making it work. The time which intervenes between the coming of a flaw and the full fruition of a capsize, is usually about three seconds, but one of these suffices for prevention, if the sailor promptly lets go his sheet or allows his boat's head to go into the wind. In practice, however, a flaw seldom strikes a close-hauled sail; the pilot's ear detects it coming several seconds before it strikes, and so, before it appears, the mainsail is as innocent of the possibility of abetting disaster as if it were the proprietor of a gambling saloon, who had been forewarned by some sympathetic police captain of an impending raid, or a skilful insurance president who knows that the state inspector is coming. How the canoeist's ear detects the coming flaw is the mystery and despair of the novice, though several hours of practice make this wisdom seem an acquisition some centuries old. When the "green" canoeist experiences a flaw, he generally seeks safety by letting go his sheet and at the same time steering "into the wind". Safety is at once assured, but when the boat again takes the "course," the other boats, if sailed by experts, are already too far away to be available if one wishes to borrow an æsthetic idea or a pipe of tobacco. The experienced sailor lets his sheet go sufficiently, but he knows to a breath when the flaw is sufficiently spent to allow him to "haul close" again, and he holds his course to a point all the while, saving some wind by throwing his weight well to windward. If he has a satisfactory family, but lacks as much life insurance as he desires, he will prefer to try a good wind over water not more than five feet deep, (and such water is a hundred times as plentiful as deeper water) but the chance of capsizing a sober canoeist of a week's practice is less than that of falling dead in the street at home; it is as easy to avoid as if it were the risk of stepping over a precipice in full view, for in the former case the catastrophe is as easily foreseen as in the latter. And while the boat is flying (literally, for her bottom barely touches the water, and she can sail at a respectable speed over tide-mud barely glazed with water,) its occupant has every pleasure experienced by the owner of a twenty-thousand dollar yacht. He has the same glorious wind whistling in his ears, the same sharp remonstrance of the waters divided by the bow, the same murmurs of recognition and complaint by the same waters as they reunite under the stern-post, the same sense of triumph over one element, of compulsion of another, which if it had its own way would be only a fitful ally, the same glorious abandon of health and spirits revelling in pure air and in endeavor unconstrained by age, sex, or previous conditions of social or business servitude. And when the sail is over, or the season itself is ended, the delightful memories of the cruise are not, as in the case of the yachtsman, palled by recollections of the frightful expense of the crew, or the extortionate charges of ship-builders for repairs. And while the yachtsman lays up his boat for the winter, and bemoans the wasting interest upon her cost, and the various charges for dockage, keeping, etc., the canoeist quietly puts his boat upon his back, or, at worst a cart, carries it to his house, and puts her down in the cellar or up in the garret (after an unsuccessful attempt to have her wintered on top of the piano in the parlor) in either of which places he may visit her as frequently as he pleases, in any weather, and refresh any memories that may seem laggard when recalled.