Nor does it at all diminish the curiousness of this matter, that to
many thousands of our rural boys and young men born along its line,
the probationary life of the Grand Canal furnishes the sole transition
between quietly reaping in a Christian corn-field, and recklessly
ploughing the waters of the most barbaric seas.
"'I see! I see!' impetuously exclaimed Don Pedro, spilling his
chicha upon his silvery ruffles. 'No need to travel!
The world's one Lima. I had thought, now, that at your temperate
North the generations were cold and holy as the hills.--
But the story.'
"I had left off, gentlemen, where the Lakeman shook the backstay.
Hardly had he done so, when he was surrounded by the three junior
mates and the four harpooneers, who all crowded him to the deck.
But sliding down the ropes like baleful comets, the two Canallers
rushed into the uproar, and sought to drag their man out of it towards
the forecastle. Others of the sailors joined with them in this attempt,
and a twisted turmoil ensued; while standing out of harm's way,
the valiant captain danced up and down with a whale-pike, calling
upon his officers to manhandle that atrocious scoundrel, and smoke
him along to the quarter-deck.
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