I must say a few words about our first mate, and then I shall be all ready for the story, with royals spread, rigging taut, and everything trim to scud before the wind.
There wasn't anything funny about our first mate. He was, on the whole, an ugly, ill-natured dog, and thoroughly hated by every one on the ship, except the captain, who generally stuck to him through thick and thin. He was a Scotchman—one of your low-browed, lantern-jawed, gaunt-boned, mean-livered Scotchmen—a regular Sawney all over, from the top of his red head to the sole of his bunioned feet. He had a voice like a cracked bugle and a heart as hard as the hardest flint on Ben Inverness, with never anything pleasant to say or do. We detested him, and only waited our chance to play a joke upon him.
That will suffice for the men. As for the ship, she was as stanch and pretty a craft as ever plowed the blue waters, was built at Portland, masted at Bangor, and rigged at Boston, with an armament the best that money could procure. She was also a very swift sailer, and we calculated to play hob with John Bull's East Indiamen and whalers before we got through with the cruise.
CHAPTER II. OUTWARD BOUND.
"Then come,
My friends, and, sitting well in order, strike
The sounding furrows, for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths