and chiding me boisterously for
lying abed. How pleasantly he startled me by his noisy objurgations to
be up and off instantly for a "three years' campaign in the South Seas!"
O magic words! "_Une campagne de trois ans dans les mers du sud_"--that
is the French for a three years' deep-water voyage.

He gave me a delightful waking, and his friendliness was unwearied;
but I fear he did not enter upon the quest for a ship for me in a very
solemn spirit. He had been at sea himself, but had left off at the age
of twenty-five, finding he could earn his living on shore in a much more
agreeable manner. He was related to an incredible number of Marseilles
well-to-do families of a certain class. One of his uncles was a
ship-broker of good standing, with a large connection among English
ships; other relatives of his dealt in ships' stores, owned sail-lofts,
sold chains and anchors, were master-stevedores, calkers, shipwrights.

His grandfather (I think) was a dignitary of a kind, the Syndic of the
Pilots. I made acquaintances among these people, but mainly among the
pilots. The very first whole day I ever spent on salt water was by
invitation, in a big half-decked pilot-boat, cruising under close reefs
on the lookout, in misty, blowing weather, for the sails of ships and
the smoke of steamers rising out there, beyond the slim and tall Planier
lighthouse cutting the line of the wind-swept horizon with a white
perpendicular stroke. They were hospitable souls, these sturdy Provencal
seamen. Under the general designation of le petit ami de Baptistin I
was made the guest of the corporation of pilots, and had the freedom of
their boats night or day. And many a day and a night, too, did I spend
cruising with these rough, kindly men, under whose auspices my intimacy
with the sea began. Many a time "the little friend of Baptistin" had the
hooded cloak of the Mediterranean sailor thrown over him by their honest
hands while dodging at night under the lee of Chateau daft on the watch
for the lights of ships. Their sea tanned faces, whiskered or shaved,
lean or full, with the intent, wrinkled sea eyes of the pilot breed, and
here and there a thin gold hoop at the lobe of a hairy ear, bent over my
sea infancy. The first operation of seamanship I had an opportunity of
observing was the boarding of ships at sea, at all times, in all states
of the weather. They gave it to me to the full. And I have been invited
to sit in more than one tall, dark h