He carried in his head not only a
log-book of the whole voyage, in which everything was complete and
accurate, and from which no one ever thought of appealing, but also an
accurate registry of all the cargo; knowing, precisely, where each
thing was, and how many hides we took in at every port.
One night, he made a rough calculation of the number of hides that
could be stowed in the lower hold, between the fore and main masts,
taking the depth of hold and breadth of beam, (for he always knew
the dimension of every part of the ship, before he had been a month on
board,) and the average area and thickness of a hide; he came
surprisingly near the number, as it afterwards turned out. The mate
frequently came to him to know the capacity of different parts of
the vessel, so he could tell the sailmaker very nearly the amount of
canvas he would want for each sail in the ship; for he knew the
hoist of every mast, and spread of every sail, on the head and foot,
in feet and inches. When we were at sea, he kept a running account, in
his head, of the ship's way- the number of knots and the courses; and
if the courses did not vary much during the twenty-four hours, by
taking the whole progress, and allowing so many eighths southing or
northing, to so many easting or westing; he would make up his
reckoning just before the captain took the sun at noon, and often came
wonderfully near the mark.
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