forgotten to calculate on seasick youth, and I had two of them, the
cook and the cabin boy. They immediately took to their bunks, and
that was the end of their usefulness for a week to come. It will be
understood, from the foregoing, that we did not have the hot meals
we might have had, nor were things kept clean and orderly down
below. But it did not matter very much anyway, for we quickly
discovered that our box of oranges had at some time been frozen;
that our box of apples was mushy and spoiling; that the crate of
cabbages, spoiled before it was ever delivered to us, had to go
overboard instanter; that kerosene had been spilled on the carrots,
and that the turnips were woody and the beets rotten, while the
kindling was dead wood that wouldn't burn, and the coal, delivered
in rotten potato-sacks, had spilled all over the deck and was
washing through the scuppers.

But what did it matter? Such things were mere accessories. There
was the boat--she was all right, wasn't she? I strolled along the
deck and in one minute counted fourteen butts in the beautiful
planking ordered specially from Puget Sound in order that there
should be no butts in it. Also, that deck leaked, and it leaked
badly. It drowned Roscoe out of his bunk and ruined the tools in
the engine-room, to say nothing of the provisions it ruined in the
galley. Also, the sides of the Snark leaked, and the bottom leaked,
and we had to pump her every day to keep her afloat. The floor of
the galley is a couple of feet above the inside bottom of the Snark;
and yet I have stood on the floor of the galley, trying to snatch a
cold bite, and been wet to the knees by the water churning around
inside four hours after the last pumping.

Then those magnificent water-tight compartments that cost so much