It's the very best way in the world to discover islands; and everybody knows that we sealers are always on the lookout for su'thin' of that sort." "Will you suffer me to inquire, Captain Poke, how many times you have doubled Cape Horn ?" My navigator threw a quick, jealous glance at me, as if he distrusted the nature of the question.
"Why, that is neither here nor there; perhaps I don't double either of the capes, perhaps I do.

I get into the South Sea with my craft, and it's of no great moment how it's done.

A skin is worth just as much in the market, though the furrier may not happen to have a glossary of the road it has travelled." "A glossary ?" "What matters a signification, commodore, when people understand each other?
This overland journey has put me to my wits, for you will understand that I've had to travel among natives that cannot speak a syllable of the homespun; so I brought the schooner's dictionary with me as a sort of terrestrial almanac, and I fancied that, as they spoke gibberish to me, the best way was to give it to them back again as near as might be in their own coin, hoping I might hit on su'thin' to their liking.

By this means I've come to be rather more voluble than formerly." "The idea was happy." "No doubt it was, as is just evinced.

But having given you a pretty clear insight into my natur' and occupation, it is time that I ask a few questions of you.