In fact, as I was to learn, he was to be the only sailor-seeming creature fore and aft.
The main crew had not yet come aboard, but was expected at any moment, the mate vouchsafed with a snarl of ominous expectancy.

Those already on board were the miscellaneous ones who had shipped themselves in New York without the mediation of boarding-house masters.

And what the crew itself would be like God alone could tell--so said the mate.

Shorty, the Japanese (or Malay) and Italian half-caste, the mate told me, was an able seaman, though he had come out of steam and this was his first sailing voyage.
"Ordinary seamen!" Mr.Pike snorted, in reply to a question.

"We don't carry Landsmen!--forget it! Every clodhopper an' cow-walloper these days is an able seaman.