The after part contained, in the midst, the main
cabin, running in a kind of bow into the curvature of
the stern; on the port side, a pantry opening forward
and a state-room for the mate; and on the starboard,
the captain's berth and water-closet. Into these we
did but glance, the main cabin holding us. It was
dark, for the sea-birds had obscured the skylight with
their droppings; it smelt rank and fusty: and it was
beset with a loud swarm of flies that beat continually
in our faces. Supposing them close attendants upon man
and his broken meat, I marvelled how they had found
their way to Midway Reef; it was sure at least some
vessel must have brought them, and that long ago, for
they had multiplied exceedingly. Part of the floor was
strewn with a confusion of clothes, books, nautical
instruments, odds and ends of finery, and such trash as
might be expected from the turning out of several
seamen's chests, upon a sudden emergency, and after a
long cruise. It was strange in that dim cabin,
quivering with the near thunder of the breakers, and
pierced with the screaming of the fowls, to turn over
so many things that other men had coveted, and prized,
and worn on their warm bodies--frayed old
underclothing, pyjamas of strange design, duck suits in
every stage of rustiness, oil-skins, pilot coats,
embroidered shirts, jackets of Ponjee silk--clothes for
the night watch at sea or the day ashore in the hotel
verandah: and mingled among these, books, cigars,
bottles of scent, fancy pipes, quantities of tobacco,
many keys, a rusty pistol, and a sprinkling of cheap
curiosities--Benares brass, Chinese jars and pictures,
and bottles of odd shells in cotton, each designed, no
doubt, for somebody at home--perhaps in Hull, of which
Trent had been a native and his ship a citizen.
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