An escape is always a joke on board
ship. A man would be ridiculed who should make a serious matter of it.
A sailor knows too well that his life hangs upon a thread, to wish
to be always reminded of it; so, if a man has an escape, he keeps it
to himself, or makes a joke of it. I have often known a man's life
to be saved by an instant of time, or by the merest chance,- the
swinging of a rope,- and no notice taken of it. One of our boys, when
off Cape Horn, reefing topsails of a dark night, and when there were
no boats to be lowered away, and where, if a man fell overboard he
must be left behind,- lost his hold of the reef-point, slipped from
the foot-rope, and would have been in the water in a moment, when the
man who was next to him on the yard caught him by the collar of his
jacket, and hauled him up upon the yard, with- "Hold on, another
time, you young monkey, and be d--d to you!"- and that was all that
was heard about it.
Sunday, August 7th. Lat. 25 deg. 59' S., long. 27 deg. 0' W., Spoke
the English bark Mary-Catherine, from Bahia, bound to Calcutta. This
was the first sail we had fallen in with, and the first time we had
seen a human form or heard the human voice, except of our own number,
for nearly a hundred days.
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