nostril, even, which was a blowhole through a ledge of rock where every wave that dashed threw up a shaft of water, lifelike and real.
It had been a long time since I last saw this island; but I remember my temporary admiration for the captain of the ship I was then in, the Tawfore , when he sang out one morning from the quarterdeck, well aft, “Go aloft there, one of ye, with a pair of eyes, and see Christmas Island.” Sure enough, there the island was in sight from the royal-yard. Captain M⸺ had thus made a great hit, and he never got over it. The chief mate, terror of us ordinaries in the ship, walking never to windward of the captain, now took himself very humbly to leeward altogether. When we arrived at Hong Kong there was a letter in the ship’s mail for me. I was in the boat with the captain some hours while he had it. But do you suppose he could hand a letter to a seaman? No, indeed; not even to an ordinary seaman. When we got to the ship he gave it to the first mate; the first mate gave it to the second mate, and he laid it, michingly, on the capstan-head, where I could get it.