"It's just what I expected," mutters another who looks as if he had a fancy to play the part of Catiline. "I tell you nothing'll ever do any good till we take the law into our own hands."
All those within hearing of these daring words instantly turn their eyes towards the speaker, some with sympathetic admiration, others to take his measure and see if his bearing corresponds with his utterance; while he, conscious of the scrutiny, straightens himself up and stares disdainfully into vacancy. Half-a-dozen of the same kidney then work their way up to him, and they all begin in a low tone to discuss the reasons why they should deprive the captain of his command, and, if he resisted, put him in irons or even tow him overboard for a mile or two. All seem greatly pleased with this last suggestion, for the idea of a steamboat captain bobbing up and down at the end of a long rope, and bubbling out his cries for help, and promises of amendment is, it must be confessed, very facetious and amusing. These arch conspirators thus mutually inflamed their noble rage, and proved so conclusively that they ought to take command of the ship, and the ease with which it could be done, that I never exactly understood why they didn't do it.
Captain W. having finished his inspection again mounted the ladder, and unconscious of the dangers by which he was surrounded walked calmly through the crowd that opened to give a passage. I expected at every step to see rude hands laid on his collar, and a revolver at each ear; but at this unlucky moment every one seemed seized with a sudden attack of modesty that disposed him to remain in the background and yield the post of honour to others. If it had not been for this unfortunate coincidence I have no doubt I should have been gratified by witnessing the entertaining spectacle suggested above; for the captain, having stopped but a moment at the galley to give some orders to the cooks, had no sooner passed the mainmast than his enemies all at once regained their usual confidence, and shook their fists at him behind his back with most alarming ferocity.
The result of this visit was the next day visible in a nondescript dish, consisting of junks of fresh pork stewed with corresponding junks of dough, and a large quantity of potatoes; after which favourable symptom there was a relapse of our old complaint.
Under these circumstances an invitation we received to dine with a select party in the lower steerage was naturally accepted with the same eagerness with which a starving author in those days when starving was the fashion would have hurried to dine with a noble lord. One of our entertainers had already made my mouth water by the rapturous terms in which he described the approaching banquet, and I waited impatiently for the appointed hour of four. He and his companions had in some way propitiated the sooty functionaries of the cabin, either by flattery or Panama brandy, and had thus succeeded in accumulating the materials for a repast of the most elegant and recherche description. It would be in vain, however, to attempt to give a full and particular account; it will be sufficient to indicate to the reader a few of the principal dishes, leaving to his imagination the same work that we left to our own, that of supplying the various accessories.
The first course consisted of beef, pork, and chicken, roast, boiled, and stewed, served up with a soup of the most varied and exquisite flavour. There was a scanty allowance of soft bread, and a plentiful supply of fresh biscuit six months old. There were potatoes in abundance, onions enough to smell of, and if spice were wanting, salt and pepper were to be had for the asking.
Having thus set out my first course, I fancy the reader picturing to his mind's eye a large table groaning under the weight of a dozen or twenty dishes, and all the useless additions of an unnatural and sickly civilization. But this would be doing gross injustice to a feast whose most striking characteristic was a grand and massive simplicity. The whole of the luxuries I have enumerated were comprised in a single dish—a round tin pan of moderate circumference, resting on the middle of a sailor's chest belonging to our host. If any one should cavil at this explanation as being altogether monstrous and incredible, I would refer him for an illustration to the tent of the fairy Peribanon, which a sea-pie as our dish was denominated, doth most closely resemble: inasmuch as it may, and sometimes doth, consist of but a few articles, and at others affords comfortable lodgings to a mighty host. But certain it is that a naturalist, on examining the various bones that were exhumed from the bowels of our pasty, would have been sadly puzzled to determine the animal to which it had belonged, and would probably have astonished the world with a marvellous account of some prodigious monster belonging neither to the Saurians nor Ophidians, but more strange than either, with the head of a swine, the liver of an ox, and the legs and gizzard of a bird.
Our second course consisted of oranges; the third varied indefinitely according to the imaginative powers of the guests. A coffee-pot two-thirds full of brandy, sugar, and water, supplied the never-failing accompaniment. As chairs were wanting, as well as a place to put them, we sat on trunks and boxes, or insinuated as large a portion of our persons as was convenient into the berths on either side; a very favourable position for the eating of soup, as it brings the head almost down to the knees, and thus prevents those slips between the cup and the lip that are nowhere else so many as at sea. On the strength of this dinner I went as far as Acapulco; when, like that wary old campaigner, Sir Dugald Dalgetty, we laid in a store of provant sufficient to last for several days. The various hotels at this place, The United States, The American House, and others with less hospitable names, were at once invaded by a hungry swarm, and the eggs, the chickens, the bread and milk that had been accumulating since the departure of the last steamer, were stowed away with a celerity that excited the mingled delight and consternation of our entertainers. But we must leave this place for another chapter.