He who has a sufficient store of this reserved knowledge and experience, it will at once be seen, enjoys a great superiority over him who has not, and is placed above the necessity of avowing a sensation as humiliating as wonder.

On the present occasion, however, bur few held out against the novelty of the actual situation of the ship; most on board being willing enough to allow that they had never before been beneath cliffs that had such a union of the magnificent, the picturesque, and the soft; though a few continued firm, acting up to the old characters with the consistency of settled obstinacy.
Strand, the boatswain, was one of those who, on all such occasions, "died hard." He was the last man in the ship who ever gave up a prejudice; and this for three several reasons: he was a cockney, and believed himself born in the centre of human knowledge; he was a seaman, and understood the world; he was a boatswain, and stood upon his dignity.
As the Proserpine fanned slowly along the land, this personage took a position between the knight-heads, on the bowsprit, where he could overlook the scene, and at the same time hear the dialogue of the forecastle; and both with suitable decorum.

Strand was as much of a monarch forward as Cuffe was aft; though the appearance of a lieutenant, or of the master, now and then, a little dimmed the lustre of his reign.
Still, Strand succumbed completely to only two of the officers--the captain and the first lieutenant; and not always to these, in what he conceived to be purely matters of sentiment.

In the way of duty, he understood himself too well ever to hesitate about obeying an order; but when it came to opinions, he was a man who could maintain his own, even in the presence of Nelson.
The first captain of the forecastle was an old seaman of the name of Catfall.

At the precise moment when Strand occupied the position named, between the knight-heads, this personage was holding a discourse with three or four of the forecastle-men, who stood on the heel of the bowsprit, inboard--the etiquette of the ship not permitting these worthies to show their heads above the nettings.