Her crew mustered ten, all told; twelve had been the complement, when
freights were good. There were, beside the crew with regular stations, a
little lad, aged about six years, and his mamma (age immaterial),
privileged above the rest, having "all nights in"--that is, not having
to stand watch. The mate, Victor, who is to see many adventures before
reaching New York again, was born and bred on shipboard. He was in
perfect health, and as strong as a windlass. When he first saw the light
and began to give orders, he was at San Francisco on the packet
_Constitution_, the vessel lost in the tempest at Samoa, just before the
great naval disaster at the same place in the year of 1889. Garfield,
the little lad above mentioned, Victor's brother, in this family ship,
was born in Hong Kong harbour, in the old bark _Amethyst_, a bona-fide
American citizen, though first seeing the light in a foreign port, the
Stars and Stripes standing sponsors for his nationality. This bark had
braved the wind and waves for fifty-eight years, but had not, up to that
date, so far as I know, experienced so lively a breeze as the one which
sprung up about her old timbers on that eventful 3rd of March, 1880.

Our foremast hands on the _Aquidneck_, six in number, were from as many
nations, strangers to me and strangers to each other; but the cook, a
negro, was a native American--to the manner born. To have even so many
Americans in one ship was considered exceptional.

Much or little as matters this family history and description of the
crew: the day of our sailing was bitter-cold and stormy, boding no good
for the coming voyage, which was to be, indeed, the most eventful of my
life of more than five-and-thirty years at sea. Studying the morning
weather report, before sailing, we saw predicted a gale from the
nor'west, and one also approaching from the sou'west at the same time.
"The prospect," said the New York papers, "is not encouraging." We were