Sketches of Persia

CHAPTER I.

Voyage from Bombay to the Persian Gulf.

There is a monotony in a long sea-voyage, particularly to passengers, which those who have never traversed the wide ocean cannot well understand. A fair or contrary wind, a calm or a storm, a man overboard, a strange sail, or the hooking of a shark, are events which rouse for the moment; but the passenger soon sinks again into his listless, restless life, sitting half an hour below, walking another half hour on deck, holding on by the rigging when the ship rolls, looking over the gangway when the sea is smooth, watching the man casting the log, and waiting with anxiety to hear the latitude announced at twelve o'clock. His little incidents are, being in the way of the officer of the watch when upon deck, and when below disturbing the captain's calculations of the longitude, by laughing or talking with other idlers; for that is the class in which he is registered in the muster-roll of the crew. With me, however, there is a pursuit which helps to beguile a long voyage. I am always on the lookout for odd characters, and these abound at sea; from which circumstance, I suppose, we have our common phrase of calling an out-of-the-way person "an odd fish," alluding to the element where he is generally found. Such a one I met on board the frigate in which we sailed for Persia, and I shall give a sketch of him as taken at the moment.

This man, whose name was Peterson, was what he appeared to be, a blunt sailor: his experience in the Indian seas recommended him to the situation he now occupied, as acting master of a frigate: he was a figure to play Falstaff, being very stout, and nearly six feet high. He wore his clothes loose, and, when he came on board, a sailor, struck with his appearance, turning his quid as he eyed him, exclaimed, "We shall never be in distress for canvass; our new master wears a spare set of sails."

I shall give Peterson's history in his own words, as related