It certainly
wants a great deal of explanation; but I suppose the most potent
reason is, that sailors, as a class, never learn to enjoy
themselves rationally. They are also morbidly suspicions of
being taken in hand by anybody who would show them anything worth
seeing, preferring to be led by the human sharks that infest all
seaports into ways of strange nastiness, and so expensive withal
that one night of such wallowing often costs them more than a
month's sane recreation and good food would. All honour to the
devoted men and women who labour in our seaports for the moral
and material benefit of the sailor, passing their lives amidst
sights and sounds shocking and sickening to the last degree,
reviled, unthanked, unpaid. Few are the missionaries abroad
whose lot is so hard as theirs.
We spent ten happy days in Honolulu, marred only by one or two
drunken rows among the chaps forward, which, however, resulted in
their getting a severe dressing down in the forecastle, where
good order was now kept. There had been no need for interference
on the part of the officers, which I was glad to see, remembering
what would have happened under such circumstances not long ago.
Being short-handed, the captain engaged a number of friendly
islanders for a limited period, on the understanding that they
were to be discharged at their native place, Vau Vau.
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