oyage.

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 amongst English
ships; other relatives of his dealt in ships' stores, owned sail-lofts,
sold chains and anchors, were master-stevedores, caulkers, shipwrights.
His grandfather (I think) was a dignitary of a kind, the Syndic of the
Pilots. I made acquaintances amongst these people, but mainly amongst
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 look-out, 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 d'If 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 house of the old town at their
hospitable board, had the bouillabaisse ladled out into a thick plate
by their high-voiced, broad-browed wives, talked to their
daughters--thick-set girls, with pure profiles, glorious masses of black
hair arranged with complicated art, dark eyes, and dazzling