قراءة كتاب Voyages and Travels of Count Funnibos and Baron Stilkin
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here nor there, but I don’t mind showing you old Dunck’s craft, if you will come along with me.”
Thus saying, the sailor, getting up, put his hands in his pockets, and led the way along the quay. On one side it was bordered by high houses, with curious gables; the floors projecting one beyond the other, and little terraces and balconies and excrescences of all sorts, carved and painted in gay colours, and cranes and beams, with blocks and ropes hanging from their ends. On the other side appeared a forest of masts, yards, and rigging, rising out of vessels of all shapes and sizes, in apparently such inextricable confusion that it seemed impossible they should ever get free of each other, and float independently on the ocean. On the opposite side was an old castle with four towers, looking very glum and gloomy; and more vessels and boats below it, leaving the centre of the river tolerably clear for other craft to pass up and down. The sailor rolled along with an independent air, not looking to see whether those he had offered to guide were following him; now and then, when passing an old shipmate it might be, or other nautical acquaintance, he gave a nod of recognition without taking his hands from his pockets or his pipe from his mouth.
“Who have you got in tow there?” asked one or two.
“Don’t know: they want to see the skipper, Jan Dunck, and I’m piloting them to where his galiot lies.”
“They look remarkably green, but they’ll be done considerably brown before old Dunck lands them,” he said in an under tone, so that the Count and Baron did not hear him. As they were going along the sailor stopped suddenly, and pointed to a black-whiskered man, wearing a tarpaulin hat on his head, with high boots, and a flushing coat.
“There’s the skipper, Jan Dunck, and there’s his craft just off the shore. I’ll tell him what you want, and wish you a good voyage,” said the seaman, who then went up to the skipper.
“If they pay for their passage, and do not complain of the roughness of the sea, or blame me for it, I’ll take them,” said the skipper, eyeing the Count and the Baron as he spoke.
The arrangement was soon concluded.
“But you promised that I should reward the sailor,” observed the Count to his friend.
“I will return him our profuse thanks. Such will be the most simple and economical way of paying the debt,” answered the Baron; and turning to the seaman, he said, politely lifting his hat, “Most brave and gallant mariner, Count Funnibos and Baron Stilkin desire to return you their most profuse thanks for the service you have rendered them, in conducting them this far on their journey, and making known to them this, I doubt not, worthy, stout, and sturdy captain, with whom they are about to commence their voyages over the treacherous ocean.”
“That’s neither here nor there; I was happy to do you a service and you’re welcome to it, only in future don’t make promises which you cannot pay in better coin than that you have treated me with; and so good day, Count Fuddlepate and Baron Stickum, or whatever you call yourselves,” answered the sailor; who, sticking his pipe in his mouth, which he had taken out to make this long speech, and putting his hands in his pocket, rolled back to where he had left his companions, to whom he failed not to recount the liberal treatment he had received in the way of compliment from the two exalted individuals he had introduced to Captain Jan Dunck.
Chapter Two.
“Well, Mynheers, the sooner we get on board the galiot the better,” said Captain Jan Dunck, addressing the Count and Baron. “She’s a fine craft—a finer never floated on the Zuyder Zee; she carries a wonderful amount of cargo; her accommodation for passengers is excellent; her cabin is quite a palace, a fit habitation for a king. She’s well found with a magnificent crew of sturdy fellows, and as to her captain, I flatter myself—though it is I who say it—that you will not find his equal afloat; yes, Mynheers, I say so without vanity. I’ve sailed, man and boy, for forty years or more on the stormy ocean, and never yet found my equal. I will convey you and your luggage and all other belongings to Amsterdam with speed and safety, always providing the winds are favourable, and we do not happen to stick on a mud-bank to be left high and dry till the next spring-tide, or that a storm does not arise and send us to the bottom, the fate which has overtaken many a stout craft, but which by my skill and knowledge I hope to avoid. However, I now invite you to come on board the Golden Hog, that we may be ready to weigh anchor directly the tide turns, and proceed on our voyage. There lies the craft on board which you are to have the happiness of sailing;” and Captain Jan Dunck, as he spoke, pointed to a galiot of no over large proportions which lay a short distance from the wharf, with her sails loosed ready for sea.
“Well, we are fortunate in finding so experienced a navigator,” observed the Count to the Baron, as they followed Captain Jan Dunck towards the steps at the bottom of which lay his boat. “He’ll carry us as safely round the world as would have done the brave Captains Schouten and Le Maire, or Christofero Columbo himself.”
“If we take him at his own estimation he is undoubtedly a first-rate navigator; but you must remember, my dear Count, that it is not always safe to judge of men by the report they give of themselves; we shall know more about them at the termination of our voyage than we do at present,” observed the Baron. “However, there is the boat, and he is making signs to us to follow him.”
The Count and Baron accordingly descended the steps into the galiot’s boat, in the stern of which sat the Captain, his weight lifting the bows up considerably out of the water. A sailor in a woollen shirt who had lost one eye, and squinted with the other, and a nose, the ruddy tip of which seemed anxious to be well acquainted with his chin, sat in the bows with a pair of sculls in his hand ready to shove off at his captain’s command.
“Give way,” said the skipper, and the one-eyed seaman began to paddle slowly and deliberately, for the boat was heavily weighted with the skipper and the Count and Baron in the stern, and as there was no necessity for haste, greater speed would have been superfluous.
“Is this the way boats always move over the water?” asked the Count, as he observed the curious manner in which the bow cocked up.
“Not unless they have great men in the stern, as my boat has at present,” answered the skipper.
“Ah, yes, I understand,” said the Count, looking very wise.
The boat was soon alongside the galiot, on board which the skipper stepped. As soon as he was out of her the bow of the boat came down with a flop in the water. He then stood ready to receive the Count and Baron. As he helped them up on deck, he congratulated them on having thus successfully performed the first part of their voyage. “And now, Mynheers,” he continued, “I must beg you to admire the masts and rigging, the yellow tint of the sails, the bright polish you can see around you.”
“You must have expended a large amount of paint and varnish in thus adorning your vessel,” observed the Count.
“I have done my best to make her worthy of her Captain,” answered the skipper, in a complacent tone, “and worthy, I may add, of conveying such distinguished passengers as yourselves.”
The Count bowed, and the Baron bowed, as they prepared to follow the skipper down through a small square hole in the deck with a hatch over it.
“Why, this is not as grand as I had expected,” observed the Count. “Not quite a palace, as you described it, Captain.”
“But it is as comfortable as a palace, and I