The Boy Fortune Hunters in Egypt

by L. Frank Baum

You will know the Seagull more intimately as my story progresses, so I will avoid a detailed description of it just now, merely adding that the ship was at once the envy and admiration of all beholders and the pride and joy of her three owners.

My father had sailed for forty years and had at one time lost his right leg in a shipwreck, so that he stumped around with a cork substitute. But he was as energetic and active as in his youth, and his vast experience fully justified his reputation as one of the ablest and shrewdest seamen in the merchant service. Indeed, Captain Steele was universally known and respected, and I had good reason to be proud of the bluff old salt who owned me as his son. He had prejudices, it is true, acquired through many strange adventures at sea and in foreign parts; but his heart was simple and frank as that of a child, and we who knew him best and loved him well had little fear of his stubborn temperament.

Naboth Perkins, my dead mother’s brother, was also a remarkable man in his way. He knew the sea as well as did my father, but prided himself on the fact that he “couldn’t navigate a ferry-boat,” having always sailed as supercargo and devoted his talents to trading. He had been one of my earliest and most faithful friends, and although I was still a mere boy at the time the Seagull was launched, I had encountered some unusual adventures in company with quaint, honest Uncle Naboth, and won certain bits of prize money that had proved the foundation of our fortunes.

These prize-winnings, converted into hard cash, had furnished the funds for building our new ship, in which we purposed beginning a conservative, staid career as American merchantmen, leaving adventures behind us and confining ourselves to carrying from port to port such merchandise as might be consigned to our care. You will hear how well our modest intention was fulfilled.

The huge proportions and staunch construction of the Seagull would enable her to sail in any known sea with perfect safety, and long before she was completed we were besieged with proposals from shippers anxious to secure our services.

Uncle Naboth, who handled all such matters for our firm, finally contracted with a big Germantown manufacturer of “Oriental” rugs to carry a load of bales to Syria, consigned to merchants there who would distribute them throughout Persia, Turkey and Egypt, to be sold to American and European tourists and carried to their homes as treasures of Oriental looms.

It was not so much the liberal payment we received as the fact that the long voyage to the Syrian port would give us an opportunity of testing the performances of the Seagull that induced Mr. Perkins to accept the contract and undertake the lengthy voyage.

“If she skims the Atlantic an’ the Mediterranean all right,” said he, “the boat’ll weather any sea on earth; so we may as well find out at the start what she’s good for. ’Sides that, we’re gittin’ a thunderin’ price fer cartin’ them rags to Syria, an’ so the deal seems a good one all ’round.”

My father gravely approved the transaction. He also was eager to test the powers of our beautiful new ship, and this would not be his first voyage to the Orient, by any means. So the papers were made out and signed and as soon as our last fittings and furnishings were installed and our crew aboard we were to voyage down the coast in sunny September weather and anchor in the Chesapeake, there to load our cargo.

Our ship’s company had been carefully selected, for the fame of my father’s new vessel and the popularity of the Captain himself attracted to us the best seamen available; so we had the satisfaction of signing a splendid company of experienced men. In addition to these sailors we shipped a first and second engineer, clever young fellows that became instantly unpopular with my father, who glared at the poor “mechanics” as if he considered them interlopers, if not rank traitors. Some of the seamen, it was arranged, would act as stokers if the engines were called into requisition, so with the addition of a couple of oilers who were also carpenter’s assistants we were satisfied we might at any time steam or sail, as the occasion demanded.