Chapter 23

AN UNACCOUNTABLE CABIN-PASSENGER, AND A MYSTERIOUS YOUNG LADY

As yet, I have said nothing special about the passengers we carried out.
But before making what little mention I shall of them, you must know
that the Highlander was not a Liverpool liner, or packet-ship, plying in
connection with a sisterhood of packets, at stated intervals, between
the two ports. No: she was only what is called a regular trader to
Liverpool; sailing upon no fixed days, and acting very much as she
pleased, being bound by no obligations of any kind: though in all her
voyages, ever having New York or Liverpool for her destination. Merchant
vessels which are neither liners nor regular traders, among sailors come
under the general head of transient ships; which implies that they are
here to-day, and somewhere else to-morrow, like Mullins's dog.

But I had no reason to regret that the Highlander was not a liner; for
aboard of those liners, from all I could gather from those who had
sailed in them, the crew have terrible hard work, owing to their
carrying such a press of sail, in order to make as rapid passages as
possible, and sustain the ship's reputation for speed. Hence it is, that
although they are the very best of sea-going craft, and built in the
best possible manner, and with the very best materials, yet, a few years
of scudding before the wind, as they do, seriously impairs their
constitutions--like robust young men, who live too fast in their teens
--and they are soon sold out for a song; generally to the people of
Nantucket, New Bedford, and Sag Harbor, who repair and fit them out for
the whaling business.

Thus, the ship that once carried over gay parties of ladies and
gentlemen, as tourists, to Liverpool or London, now carries a crew of
harpooners round Cape Horn into the Pacific. And the mahogany and
bird's-eye maple cabin, which once held rosewood card-tables and
brilliant coffee-urns, and in which many a bottle of champagne, and many
a bright eye sparkled, now accommodates a bluff Quaker captain from
Martha's Vineyard; who, perhaps, while lying with his ship in the Bay of
Islands, in New Zealand, entertains a party of naked chiefs and savages
at dinner, in place of the packet-captain doing the honors to the
literati, theatrical stars, foreign princes, and gentlemen of leisure
and fortune, who generally talked gossip, politics, and nonsense across
the table, in transatlantic trips. The broad quarter-deck, too, where
these gentry promenaded, is now often choked up by the enormous head of
the sperm-whale, and vast masses of unctuous blubber; and every where
reeks with oil during the prosecution of the fishery. Sic transit gloria
mundi! Thus departs the pride and glory of packet-ships! It is like a
broken down