That evening the captain tried his usual panacea upon my moodiness, I being the only officer he seemed anxious to propitiate, for reasons best known to himself. His conversation comprised stories about "Mr. Jones," and explanations of the "philosophy of the thing" as applied to currents, which in this case he demonstrated, that as water cannot always run into a place unless some runs out, there must be a hole underneath the Isthmus of Suez to let it run through into the Red Sea. And then he evidenced that he was not insensible to the influence of the noble scenes and historical interest which had surrounded us that day, by remarking how much of a charm it gave to sea-life to visit such interesting localities, and he added: "How pleasant it is too, to think that we are going to visit the land where our Saviour was born!"
I was almost as much astonished by the fact of the captain's mentioning that name calmly and soberly, as at the information that Christ was born in Italy. I had already measured his stock of knowledge, and had received many similar pieces of information before, which, knowing the captain's conceitedness and temper, I thought it good policy not to contradict; though even my usual reply of, "Is it so, sir?" sometimes aroused his ire, as implying a doubt of his correctness in making assertions; such, for instance, as, that Gibraltar belonged to France, or that the clouds were six hundred miles above the earth, or that the moon had no influence over the tides. I felt inclined to try the experiment, if it was possible to convince him of an error, or rather to make him acknowledge one--a matter upon which I had great doubt. I cautiously said: "Christ wasn't born in Italy, was he, sir?"
"Of course not," said the captain; "haven't you read the Bible enough to know that? I mean Europe; doesn't Italy belong to Europe?"
"Yes, sir," I replied; "but I've always understood that Christ was born in Palestine, which is a country of Asia."
"Of course he was," said the captain. "I know that very well; and that's just what I meant to say. We're going to visit that part of the world where Christ was born. Europe, Asia and Africa make one hemisphere, don't they?"
"Yes, sir: one is called the Eastern, and the other the Western hemisphere."