My new messmate,
Nicholas, was the most immense man that I had ever seen in my life.
He came on the coast in a vessel which was afterwards wrecked, and
now let himself out to the different houses to cure hides. He was
considerably over six feet, and of a frame so large that he might
have been shown for a curiosity. But the most remarkable thing about
him was his feet. They were so large that he could not find a pair of
shoes in California to fit him, and was obliged to send to Oahu for a
pair; and when he got them, he was compelled to wear them down at the
heel. He told me once, himself, that he was wrecked in an American
brig on the Goodwin Sands, and was sent up to London, to the charge
of the American consul, without clothing to his back or shoes to his
feet, and was obliged to go about London streets in his stocking feet
three or four days, in the month of January, until the consul could
have a pair of shoes made for him. His strength was in proportion to
his size, and his ignorance to his strength- "strong as an ox, and
ignorant as strong." He neither knew how to read nor write. He had
been to sea from a boy, and had seen all kinds of service, and been
in every kind of vessel: merchantmen, men-of-war, privateers, and
slavers; and from what I could gather from his accounts of himself,
and from what he once told me, in confidence, after we had become
better acquainted, he had even been in worse business than
slave-trading.
Pages:
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256