"
I turned round from eyeing the bed, but he had disappeared.
Folding back the counterpane, I stooped over the bed.
Though none of the most elegant, it yet stood the scrutiny
tolerably well. I then glanced round the room; and besides
the bedstead and centre table, could see no other furniture
belonging to the place, but a rude shelf, the four walls,
and a papered fireboard representing a man striking a whale.
Of things not properly belonging to the room, there was a
hammock lashed up, and thrown upon the floor in one corner;
also a large seaman's bag, containing the harpooneer's wardrobe,
no doubt in lieu of a land trunk. Likewise, there was a parcel
of outlandish bone fish hooks on the shelf over the fire-place,
and a tall harpoon standing at the head of the bed.
But what is this on the chest? I took it up, and held it close
to the light, and felt it, and smelt it, and tried every way
possible to arrive at some satisfactory conclusion concerning it.
I can compare it to nothing but a large door mat,
ornamented at the edges with little tinkling tags something
like the stained porcupine quills round an Indian moccasin.
There was a hole or slit in the middle of this mat, as you see
the same in South American ponchos.
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