Chapter 15 - Page 2

drawbacks, I call the operation a good one. Then that blundering
through the Straits, though it must never be talked of in any other
light than a bold push for a quick passage, did us a wonderful deal of
good, shoving us ahead near a month in time. It has put us so much
ahead of our calculations, indeed, that I would cruise for Frenchmen
for five or six weeks, were there the least probability that one of
the chaps was to the westward of the Horn. Such not being the fact,
however, and there still being a very long road before us, I have
thought it best to push for the next point of destination. Read that
page of the owner's idees, Mr. Wallingford, and you will get their
advice for just such a situation as that in which we find ourselves."

The passage pointed out by Captain Marble was somewhat parenthetical,
and was simply intended to aid Captain Williams, in the event of his
not being able to accomplish the other objects of his voyage. It had a
place in the instructions, indeed, solely on account of a suggestion
of Marble's himself, the project being one of those favourite schemes
of the mate, that men sometimes maintain through thick or thin, until
they get to be ruling thoughts. On Captain Williams it had not weighed
a feather; his intention having been to proceed to the Sandwich
Islands for sandalwood, which was the course then usually pursued by
North-West traders, after quitting the coast. The parenthetical
project, however, was to touch at the last island, procure a few
divers, and proceed in quest of certain islands where it was supposed
the pearl fishery would succeed. Our ship was altogether too large,
and every way too expensive, to be risked in such an adventure, and so
I told the ex-mate without any scruple. But this fishery was a "fixed
idea," a quick road to wealth, in the new captain's mind, and finding
it in the instructions, though simply as a contingent course, he was
inclined to regard it as the great object of the voyage. Such it was
in his eyes, and such it ought to be, as he imagined, in those of the
owners.

Marble had excellent qualities in his way, but he was not fit to
command a ship. No man could stow her better, fit her better, sail her
better, take better care of her in heavy weather, or navigate her
better; and yet he wanted the judgment necessary to manage the
property that must be committed to his care, and he had no more ideas
of commercial thrift, than if he had never been employed in any of the
concerns of commerce. This was, in truth, the reason he had never
risen any higher in his profession, the mercantile instinct--one of
the liveliest and most acute to be found in natural history--forewarning
his different owners that he was already in the berth nature