about their hardships and adventures, in the course of which he rivaled
Sinbad in his long tales of the sea, about his fishing exploits on the
coast of Labrador.

This gossiping familiarity shocked the captain's notions of rank and
subordination, and nothing was so abhorrent to him as the community
of pipe between master and man, and their mingling in chorus in the
outlandish boat-songs.

Then there was another whimsical source of annoyance to him. Some of the
young clerks, who were making their first voyage, and to whom everything
was new and strange, were, very rationally, in the habit of taking notes
and keeping journals. This was a sore abomination to the honest captain,
who held their literary pretensions in great contempt. "The collecting
of materials for long histories of their voyages and travels," said
he, in his letter to Mr. Astor, "appears to engross most of their
attention." We can conceive what must have been the crusty impatience of
the worthy navigator, when, on any trifling occurrence in the course of
the voyage, quite commonplace in his eyes, he saw these young landsmen
running to record it in their journals; and what indignant glances he
must have cast to right and left, as he worried about the deck, giving
out his orders for the management of the ship, surrounded by singing,
smoking, gossiping, scribbling groups, all, as he thought, intent upon
the amusement of the passing hour, instead of the great purposes and
interests of the voyage.

It is possible the captain was in some degree right in his notions.
Though some of the passengers had much to gain by the voyage, none of
them had anything positively to lose. They were mostly young men, in the
heyday of life; and having got into fine latitudes, upon smooth seas,