The Britannia was alongside, and we were getting under way.
A considerable body of men was walking around with the windlass or
variously engaged on the forecastle-head. Of the crew proper were
two watches of fifteen men each. In addition were sailmakers, boys,
bosuns, and the carpenter. Nearly forty men were they, but such men!
They were sad and lifeless. There was no vim, no go, no activity.
Every step and movement was an effort, as if they were dead men
raised out of coffins or sick men dragged from hospital beds. Sick
they were--whiskey-poisoned. Starved they were, and weak from poor
nutrition. And worst of all, they were imbecile and lunatic.
I looked aloft at the intricate ropes, at the steel masts rising and
carrying huge yards of steel, rising higher and higher, until steel
masts and yards gave way to slender spars of wood, while ropes and
stays turned into a delicate tracery of spider-thread against the
sky. That such a wretched muck of men should be able to work this
magnificent ship through all storm and darkness and peril of the sea
was beyond all seeming.
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