Chapter LXIX - Page 2

and snuffing the nauseous odors of
bilge water, I felt something gallop over me. I turned out promptly.
However, I turned in again when I found it was only a rat. Presently
something galloped over me once more. I knew it was not a rat this time,
and I thought it might be a centipede, because the Captain had killed one
on deck in the afternoon. I turned out. The first glance at the pillow
showed me repulsive sentinel perched upon each end of it--cockroaches as
large as peach leaves--fellows with long, quivering antennae and fiery,
malignant eyes. They were grating their teeth like tobacco worms, and
appeared to be dissatisfied about something. I had often heard that
these reptiles were in the habit of eating off sleeping sailors' toe
nails down to the quick, and I would not get in the bunk any more. I lay
down on the floor. But a rat came and bothered me, and shortly afterward
a procession of cockroaches arrived and camped in my hair. In a few
moments the rooster was crowing with uncommon spirit and a party of fleas
were throwing double somersaults about my person in the wildest disorder,
and taking a bite every time they struck. I was beginning to feel really
annoyed. I got up and put my clothes on and went on deck.

The above is not overdrawn; it is a truthful sketch of inter-island
schooner life. There is no such thing as keeping a vessel in elegant
condition, when she carries molasses and Kanakas.

It was compensation for my sufferings to come unexpectedly upon so
beautiful a scene as met my eye--to step suddenly out of the sepulchral
gloom of the cabin and stand under the strong light of the moon--in the
centre, as it were, of a glittering sea of liquid silver--to see the
broad sails straining in the gale, the ship heeled over on her side, the
angry foam hissing past her lee bulwarks, and sparkling sheets of spray
dashing high over her bows and raining upon her decks; to brace myself
and hang fast to the first object that presented itself, with hat jammed
down and coat tails whipping in the breeze, and feel that exhilaration
that thrills in one's hair and quivers down his back bone when he knows
that every inch of canvas is drawing and the vessel cleaving through the
waves at her utmost speed. There was no darkness, no dimness, no
obscurity there. All was brightness, every object was vividly defined.
Every prostrate Kanaka; every coil of rope; every calabash of poi; every
puppy; every seam in the flooring; every bolthead; every object; however
minute, showed sharp and distinct in its every outline; and the shadow of
the broad mainsail lay black as a pall upon the deck, leaving Billings's
white upturned face glorified and his body in a total eclipse.
Monday morning we were close to the island of Hawaii. Two of its high
mountains were in