Non-Fiction > Books > London, 1881 - Virginibus Puerisque, and other papers

The English Admirals. 195
and everything sea-going in the eyes of English
lads on a half-holiday at the coast. Nay, and
what we know of the misery between decks
enhances the bravery of what was done by
giving it something for contrast. We like to
know that these bold and honest fellows con-
trived to live, and to keep bold and honest,
among absurd and vile surroundings.
No reader can forget the description of the
TJumder in Roderick Random : the disorderly
tyranny ; the cruelty and dirt of officers and
men ; deck after deck, each with some new
object of offence ; the hospital, where the ham-
mocks were huddled together with but fourteen
inches space for each ; the cockpit, far under
water, where, " in an intolerable stench," the
spectacled steward kept the accounts of the
different messes ; and the canvas enclosure, six
feet square, in which Morgan made flip and
salmagundi, smoked his pipe, sang his Welsh
songs, and swore his queer Welsh imprecations.