understand why any of them toil on and obey an order in this freezing
hell of the Horn. Is it because of fear of death that they do not
cease work and bring death to all of us? Or is it because they are
slave-beasts, with a slave-psychology, so used all their lives to
being driven by their masters that it is beyond their mental power to
refuse to obey?

And yet most of them, in a week after we reach Seattle, will be on
board other ships outward bound for the Horn. Margaret says the
reason for this is that sailors forget. Mr. Pike agrees. He says
give them a week in the south-east trades as we run up the Pacific
and they will have forgotten that they have ever been around the
Horn. I wonder. Can they be as stupid as this? Does pain leave no
record with them? Do they fear only the immediate thing? Have they
no horizons wider than a day? Then indeed do they belong where they
are.

They ARE cowardly. This was shown conclusively this morning at two
o'clock. Never have I witnessed such panic fear, and it was fear of
the immediate thing--fear, stupid and beast-like. It was Mr.
Mellaire's watch. As luck would have it, I was reading Boas's Mind
of Primitive Man when I heard the rush of feet over my head. The
Elsinore was hove to on the port tack at the time, under very short
canvas. I was wondering what emergency had brought the watch upon
the poop, when I heard another rush of feet that meant the second
watch. I heard no pulling and hauling, and the thought of mutiny
flashed across my mind.

Still nothing happened, and, growing curious, I got into my sea-
boots, sheepskin coat, and oilskin, put on my sou'wester and mittens,