Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/15

 *larly those on the Atlantic, see very little of the passengers, but on the Pacific, captains have little to do, and are more genial. On the Atlantic, there is always something for captains to do. Ships are seen frequently, and if it isn't ships, it is fog. But the Pacific is very lonely; a ship is rarely seen here, although we have seen one on this voyage: the "Ventura," the sister ship of the "Sonoma." We met the "Ventura" on Christmas day, two days out of Honolulu, but it went by like a race-horse, and we saw little of it Adelaide sits on Captain Trask's left, a lady with a maid having secured the coveted place on his right. He likes to talk, and we are already in possession of many of his reminiscences. He learned his trade as most Americans do—from the ground up, and went to sea as a common sailor when fifteen years old. By degrees he learned the technical side of his trade, and has been around the world many times in sailing ships. He is a big fellow, and I imagine he has quelled many a mutiny with his fists. Occasionally, early in the morning, I catch him punching the bag on deck, and no other man on board is equally expert at it. Not long ago, the crew of the "Sonoma" mutinied at Sydney, in trying to enforce some rule of the union, and he landed sixty-two of them in jail. He took the ship back to San Francisco with a new and inexperienced crew, and reached port on time. He is very good-natured now, but I imagine that, on occasion, he would be real rough, and I shall behave myself while on board Poets love to use the expression, "As true as the needle to the pole," but Captain Trask says the needle is not true to the pole, and does not point