May 30th.--. . . . On board my salt-vessels and colliers there are many
things happening, many pictures which, in future years, when I am again
busy at the loom of fiction, I could weave in; but my fancy is rendered
so torpid by my ungenial way of life that I cannot sketch off the scenes
and portraits that interest me, and I am forced to trust them to my
memory, with the hope of recalling them at some more favorable period.
For these three or four days I have been observing a little Mediterranean
boy from Malaga, not more than ten or eleven years old, but who is
already a citizen of the world, and seems to be just as gay and contented
on the deck of a Yankee coal-vessel as he could be while playing beside
his mother's door. It is really touching to see how free and happy he
is,--how the little fellow takes the whole wide world for his home, and
all mankind for his family. He talks Spanish,--at least that is his
native tongue; but he is also very intelligible in English, and perhaps
he likewise has smatterings of the speech of other countries, whither the
winds may have wafted this little sea-bird.
Pages:
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304