Читать книгу Men Against the Sea – Book Set. The Greatest Maritime Adventure Novels: The Bounty Trilogy, Lost Island, The Hurricane, Botany Bay, The Far Lands, Tales of the South Seas… онлайн

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In addition to such pictures, there was scarcely a man on the ship who had not acquired some words and phrases of the Tahitian language, which they took care to use in their talk with one another. A few had become remarkably proficient, and could carry on conversations in which scarcely a word of English was to be heard. All of them had pieces of the Indian cloth, and it was a curious sight, in the early mornings when they were washing down the decks, to see them at their work dressed only in turbans of tapa, with a strip of the same material about their loins, and jabbering away with great fluency in the Indian tongue. An Englishman fresh from home would hardly have recognized them as fellow countrymen.

There was an inward change as noticeable to any thoughtful observer as these outward ones. Duties were performed as usual, but there was little heartiness displayed, and this applied to some of the officers as well as to the men. Never, I fancy, has one of His Majesty’s ships been worked homeward, after long absence, with less enthusiasm.