Herman Melville

“ When we were but a few days from port, a comical adventure befell this cabin-passenger. There is an old custom, still in vogue among some merchant sailors, of tying fast in the rigging any lubberly landsman of a passenger who may be detected taking excursions aloft, however moderate the flight of the awkward fowl. This is called “making a spread eagle” of the man ”

“ 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 ”

“ But this Captain Riga was no Raleigh, and hardly any sort of a true gentleman whatever, as I have formerly declared. Yet, perhaps, he might have worn his old clothes in this instance, for the express purpose of proving, by his disdain for the toilet, that he was nothing but the young lady’s guardian; for many guardians do not care one fig how shabby they look. ”

“ He seemed the true microcosm, or little world to himself: standing in no need of levying contributions upon the surrounding universe. Conjecture was lost in speculating as to who he was, and what was his business. The sailors, who are always curious with regard to such matters, and criticise cabin-passengers more than cabin-passengers are perhaps aware at the time, completely exhausted themselves in suppositions, some of which are characteristically curious.
One of the crew said he was a mysterious bearer of secret dispatches to the English court ”

“ 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 ”