"Don't you know Job Terry? I
thought everybody knew Job Terry," said a green-hand, who came in
the boat, to me, when I asked him about his captain. He was indeed a
singular man. He was six feet high, wore thick cowhide boots, and
brown coat and trowsers, and, except a sun-burnt complexion, had not
the slightest appearance of a sailor; yet he had been forty years in
the whale trade, and, as he said himself, had owned ships, built
ships, and sailed ships. His boat's crew were a pretty raw set, just
set out of the bush, and, as the sailor's phrase is, "hadn't got the
hayseed out of their hair." Captain Terry convinced our captain that
our reckoning was a little out, and, having spent the day on board,
put off in his boat at sunset for his ship, which was now six or eight
miles astern. He began a "yarn" when he came aboard, which lasted,
with but little intermission, for four hours. It was all about
himself, and the Peruvian government, and the Dublin frigate, and Lord
James Townshend, and President Jackson, and the ship Ann M'Kim of
Baltimore. It would probably never have come to an end, had not a good
breeze sprung up, which sent him off to his own vessel.
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