When they would let me I went on board, to fall over things and ask questions. My knowledge of shipping was about what could be expected of one whose life had been spent on the prairies of the West, with now and then a fleeting glimpse of a Mississippi River steamer. I suppose they wondered how I could be so interested in a subject, concerning which I displayed such a distressing lack of knowledge. They were willing to enlighten me, however, for considerations of tobacco or money, and daily I made new bosom friends—some of them, I suspect, as unholy a lot of sea-rovers as ever found reward at the end of a yard-arm.
I did not seek technical instruction. What I yearned for was their personal experiences, and these they painted for me in colorings of the sea and sky, and in such measure as the supplies were forthcoming. Almost to a man they readily remembered my Uncle Nicholas, but as they differed widely concerning his stature, complexion and general attributes, I was prone to believe at last that they would have recalled him quite as willingly under any other name; and indeed I found this to be true when I made the experiment, finally, of giving his name as Hopkins, or Pierce, or Samelson, instead of the real one, which had been Lovejoy.
I gathered courage presently to interview the officers, but these I found rather less entertaining, perhaps because they were more truthful. Only one of them recalled my Uncle Nicholas, a kindly first mate, and I suspect that even this effort resulted from a desire to please rather than from any real mental process or strict regard for verities.
I suppose I annoyed them, too, for I threw out a hint now and then which suggested my becoming a part of their ship’s company, though in what capacity or for what purpose neither I nor they could possibly imagine. As for my Antarctic scheme, I presently avoided mentioning it, or, at most, referred to it but timidly. Indeed, I demeaned myself so far at times as to recall it in jest as the wild fancy of some mythical third party whose reasoning and mentality were properly matters of ridicule and contempt.
For I had discovered early in the game that the conception of a warm country at the South Pole appealed as little to the seaman as to the scientist. The sailors whom I had subsidized most liberally regarded me with suspicion and unconsciously touched their foreheads at the suggestion, while the kindly first officer, who had been willing to remember my uncle, promptly forgot him again and walked away.