Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2)

ut so it is, that when Cynthia shows a round and chubby disk, few daring deeds are done. Though true it may be, that of moonlig

n her final quarter, an

withdrawing from

divided at night into two bands, alternately on deck every four hours, there were four watches, each composed of a boat's crew, the "headsman" (always one of th

, and are responsible for the ship du

. Hence, we were in the same watch; to which, also, three others belonged, including Mark, the ha

ouble themselves with keeping much of a look-out; especially, as a strange sail is almost a prodigy in these lonely waters. In some ships, for weeks in and weeks out, you are puzzled t

t drowsiness being incidental to all natures, even to Napoleon, beside his own sentry napping in the snowy bivouac; so, often, in snowy moonlight, or ebon eclipse, dozed Ma

e evening), sailors are quite lively and frolicsome; their spirits even flow far into the first of the long "night-watches;" but upon

n old monkey jackets, or coils of rigging, and hie to their hammocks, almost without interrupting their dre

fered a whole day to pass unemployed; waiting for the night, when the star board-quarter-boa

"Starboleens ahoy; eight bells there belo

t sharks in his sleep. Jarl and our solitary watch-mate were groping their way into their trowsers. And little was heard but th