This would account for his remembering so much of it with considerable vividness.

For instance, the impressions attending his first breakfast on board the _Ferndale_, both visual and mental, were as fresh to him as if received yesterday.
The surprise, it is easy to understand, would arise from the inability to interpret aright the signs which experience (a thing mysterious in itself) makes to our understanding and emotions.

For it is never more than that.

Our experience never gets into our blood and bones.

It always remains outside of us.