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navigation in these seas, and apart from the rottenness attendant upon
age. It will appear perhaps an observation somewhat over-curious, but
this wood would have every characteristic of Spanish oak, if Spanish oak
were distended by any unnatural means.
In reading the above sentence a curious apothegm of an old
weather-beaten Dutch navigator comes full upon my recollection. "It
is as sure," he was wont to say, when any doubt was entertained of his
veracity, "as sure as there is a sea where the ship itself will grow in
bulk like the living body of the seaman."
*
* * * *
About an hour ago, I made bold to thrust myself among a group of the
crew. They paid me no manner of attention, and, although I stood in the
very midst of them all, seemed utterly unconscious of my presence. Like
the one I had at first seen in the hold, they all bore about them the
marks of a hoary old age. Their knees trembled with infirmity; their
shoulders were bent double with decrepitude; their shrivelled skins
rattled in the wind; their voices were low, tremulous and broken; their
eyes glistened with the rheum of years; and their gray hairs streamed
terribly in the tempest. Around them, on every part of the deck, lay
scattered mathematical instruments of the most quaint and obsolete
construction.
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