biscuit, a cut of salt junk, and a rummer of Schiedam. I wish I could
say the same of all the Christians I could name, who are by no means bad
hands at cheating you, and then turn you out of doors, hungry and
thirsty, and without a shoe to your foot. I don't say that a Jew won't
swindle you out of your shoes, and your stockings, too, in the way of
business; but he will always give you credit for a new set of slops, and
this I have often said to our pursers aboard. Note this: that pursers
are the biggest thieves that ever deserved to be flogged, pickled,
tarred, keel-hauled, and then hanged.

I had six brothers and sisters--so we might have called ourselves the
Seven United Daals if we had had the wit to do so. There was Adrian,
the eldest. He was a clever yunker, and was bound 'prentice to a
clock-maker. He went to England, and I have sometimes heard made a
great deal of money there; but he never sent us any of it--and what is
the good of having a rich brother if he doesn't let you share in his pay
and prize-money? My messmates always shared in my rhino when I had any;
and if your brother is not your messmate I should like to know who is.
Another of my brothers, too, the second, Hendrik by name, did very well
in life; for being very quick at figures and ready with his pen, old Mr
Jacob Jacobson, the Israelitish money-changer, took a fancy to him and
made him his clerk. He went away when he grew up, and for many long
years I heard nothing about him; but it chanced once that, being at New
York, to which port I had shipped from Macao, I had a draft for a
hundred and fifty dollars to get cashed; and the draft was on a firm of
bankers who had their shop down by the Bowling Green, by the name of Van
Daal, Peanut, and McCute. The "Daal" struck me for a moment; but seeing
the "Van" before it I concluded that the name could not belong to any of
my folk, and took no more notice of it. I presented my bit of writing
at the counter, and the paymaster's clerk--a chap with a copper shovel
in his flipper, as if he kept gold and silver by the shovelful in the
hold--he gives me back the pay-note, and he says, "Sign your name here,
my man." So I sign my name "Jan Daal, mariner." So he takes it into a
little caboose behind the counter; and by-and-by out comes a short fat
man with big whiskers, dressed as fine as a supercargo going out to
dinner with his owner, and with a great watch-chain and seals, and his
fingers all over dia