It was eight feet in length, five in breadth.

I was accustomed to the exigencies of sea life, and could do with its narrow proportions, also with its furniture--a table, a cupboard, a cane-bottomed arm-chair, a washing-stand on an iron pedestal, and a berth to which a less accommodating passenger would doubtless have objected.

The passage would be a short one, however, so I took possession of that cabin, which I was to occupy for only four, or at the worst five weeks, with entire content.
The eight men who composed the crew were named respectively Martin Holt, sailing-master; Hardy, Rogers, Drap, Francis, Gratian, Burg, and Stern--sailors all between twenty-five and thirty-five years old--all Englishmen, well trained, and remarkably well disciplined by a hand of iron.
Let me set it down here at the beginning, the exceptionally able man whom they all obeyed at a word, a gesture, was not the captain of the _Halbrane_; that man was the second officer, James West, who was then thirty-two years of age.
James West was born on the sea, and had passed his childhood on board a lighter belonging to his father, and on which the whole family lived.

Ail his life he had breathed the salt air of the English Channel, the Atlantic, or the Pacific.

He never went ashore except for the needs of his service, whether of the State or of trade.