Saved from the Sea The Loss of the Viper, and her Crew's Saharan Adventures

Excerpt

The wonderful linguist—I study Arabic—My first voyage to sea—We sail for the coast of Africa—The brig capsized—Saved on a raft.

“Never throw away a piece of string, a screw, or a nail, or neglect an opportunity, when it offers, of gaining knowledge or learning how to do a thing,” my father used to say; and as I respected him, I followed his advice,—and have, through life, on many occasions had reason to be thankful that I did so.

In the town near which we resided lived a tailor, Andrew Spurling by name. He was a remarkable man, though a mere botcher at his trade; for he could never manage to make his customers’ clothes fit their bodies. For fat men he invariably made tight coats, and for thin people loose ones. Few, therefore, except those who were indifferent on that point, went a second time to him for new ones. He repaired clothes, however, to perfection, and never refused to attempt renovating the most threadbare or tattered of garments. He had evidently mistaken his vocation; or rather, his friends had committed a great error when they made him a tailor. Yet perhaps he succeeded as well in it as he would have done at any handicraft. He possessed, in fact, a mind which might have raised him to a respectable, if not a high position, in the walks of literature or science. As it was, however, it was concentrated on one object—the acquisition of languages. Andrew had been sent to the grammar-school in our town, where he gained the rudiments of education, and a certain amount of Latin and Greek; and where he might, possibly, have become well-educated, had he not—his father dying insolvent—been taken from school, and, much to his grief, apprenticed to the trade he was now following.

Instead of perfecting himself in the languages of which he already knew a little, and without a friend to guide him,—having saved up money enough to buy a grammar and dictionary,—he commenced the study of another; after mastering the chief difficulties of which he began still another; and so he had gone on through life, with the most determined perseverance, gaining even more than a smattering of the tongues not only of Europe but of the Eastern world, though he could make no practical use of his acquisitions.

Apparently slight circumstances produce important results. Coming out of school one day, and while playing, as usual, in our somewhat rough fashion, my class-mate, Richard Halliday, tore my jacket from the collar downwards.

“That is too bad,” I exclaimed. “A pretty figure I will make, going through the streets in this state.”

“Never mind, Charlie,” he answered. “Come into old Spurling’s shop; he will sew it up in a trice. He always mends our things; and I will pay for it.”

I at once accepted my school-fellow’s offer; and we made our way to the narrow lane in which Andrew’s small shop was situated. I had never before been there, though I had occasionally seen his tall, gaunt figure as he wended his way to church on Sunday; for on no other day in the week did he appear out of doors.

“Here’s Charlie Blore, who wants to have his jacket mended, Mr Spurling,” said Dick, introducing me....