Roughing It from California Through France

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: seas ran high, and then she plunged a little, brl iliat was of no importance. The captain was affectionately called by his crew, the Loup de Mer (Sea Wolf), doubtless because he had foraged the seas so often. The crew idolized the captain for he was such a fine seaman. These facts and many others did I...
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: seas ran high, and then she plunged a little, brl iliat was of no importance. The captain was affectionately called by his crew, the Loup de Mer (Sea Wolf), doubtless because he had foraged the seas so often. The crew idolized the captain for he was such a fine seaman. These facts and many others did I glean from the communicative steward. 1 asked him, though, how it was that since the ship was so good and strong a one, she happened to break her rudder at sea. Ah, Monsieur, vous ne comprenez pas said he. A big wave come like dat, zo (a big flourish of the arm here), and strike ze sheep on ze gouvernail, and break ze gouvernail. Toute a 1'huere she be fixed. Ze Loup de Mer, ze commandant, he get mad and cry like a bull, 'vhat for you no do dis, vhat for you no do dat, ' and rapidement ze gouvernail be fixed. Ze sheep she go round and round like dat (here he spun his hand around rapidly in a circle), but ze commandant he no care for nozzing. He imprecate furieusement, he tramp his foot, his countenance blanche wiz colere .(ragej, he grow furieux. Mais, non enfant, ze gouvernial he be fixed. This eloquent harangue (which I have given as faithfully as I could) was not reassuring to me. I had not much faith in French sailors, for I had never heard that the French were good sailors. Surely this ship was not called the plunger without a good reason, and why should she have broken her rudder and become unmanageable 2 I expressed my doubts to the steward as to the French sailors being as good as the English, and this got him wild. He poured broadsides of French into me; he showed his teeth, snapped his fingers, jumped about like a monkey, and behaved most extravagantly. 1 had wounded him in a tender spot. I apologized and went np stairs. The scenes on board during the two days.