.

It shows what conversational resources are always at hand in a seaport
town, that the boatman with whom I first happened to visit this burning
vessel had been thrice at sea on ships similarly destroyed, and could
give all the particulars of their fate. I know no class of uneducated
men whose talk is so apt to be worth hearing as that of sailors. Even
apart from their personal adventures and their glimpses at foreign
lands, they have made observations of nature which are far more careful
and minute than those of farmers, because the very lives of sailors are
always at risk. Their voyages have also made them sociable and fond of
talk, while the pursuits of most men tend to make them silent; and
their constant changes of scene, though not touching them very deeply,
have really given a certain enlargement to their minds. A quiet
demeanor in a seaport town proves nothing; the most inconspicuous man
may have the most thrilling career to look back upon. With what a
superb familiarity do these men treat this habitable globe! Cape Horn
and the Cape of Good Hope are in their phrase but the West Cape and the
East Cape, merely two familiar portals of their wonted home. With what
undisguised contempt they speak of the enthusiasm displayed over the
ocean yacht-race! That any man should boast of crossing the Atlantic in
a schooner of two hundred tons, in presence of those who have more than
once reached the Indian Ocean in a fishing-smack of fifty, and have
beaten in the homeward race the ships in whose company they sailed! It
is not many years since there was here a fishing-skipper, whose surname
was "Daredevil," and who sailed from this port to all parts of the
world, on sealing voyages, in a sloop so small that she was popularly
said to go under water when she got outside the lights, and never to
reappear until she reached her port.

And not only those who sail on long voyages, but even our local pilots
and fishermen, still lead an adventurous and untamed life, less
softened than any other by the appliances of modern days. In their
undecked boats they hover day and night along these stormy coasts, and
at any hour the beating of the long-roll upon the beach may call their
full manhood into action. Cowardice is sifted and crushed out from
among them by a pressure so constant; and they are withal truthful and
steady in their ways, with few vices and many virtues. They are born
poor, and remain poor, for their work is hard, with mo