Melville, Herman - Benito Cereno and Billy Budd

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Benito Cereno and Billy Budd

Herman Melville

Table of Contents

Benito Cereno and Billy Budd...........................................................................................................................1

Herman Melville......................................................................................................................................1

Benito Cereno and Billy Budd

Herman Melville

Benito Cereno• Billy Budd• CHAPTER I• CHAPTER II• CHAPTER III• CHAPTER IV• CHAPTER V• CHAPTER VI• CHAPTER VII• CHAPTER VIII• CHAPTER IX• CHAPTER X• CHAPTER XI• CHAPTER XII• CHAPTER XIII• CHAPTER XIV• CHAPTER XV• CHAPTER XVI• CHAPTER XVII• CHAPTER XVIII• CHAPTER XIX• CHAPTER XX• CHAPTER XXI• CHAPTER XXII• CHAPTER XXI• CHAPTER XXIV• CHAPTER XXV• CHAPTER XXVI• CHAPTER XXVII• CHAPTER XXVIII• CHAPTER XXIX• CHAPTER XXX• CHAPTER XXXI•

BENITO CERENO

by Herman Melville

IN THE year 1799, Captain Amasa Delano, of Duxbury, in Massachusetts, commanding a large sealer and

general trader, lay at anchor, with a valuable cargo, in the harbour of St. Maria− a small, desert, uninhabited

island towards the southern extremity of the long coast of Chili. There he had touched for water.

On the second day, not long after dawn, while lying in his berth, his mate came below, informing him that a

strange sail was coming into the bay. Ships were then not so plenty in those waters as now. He rose, dressed,

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and went on deck.

The morning was one peculiar to that coast. Everything was mute and calm; everything grey. The sea, though

undulated into long roods of swells, seemed fixed, and was sleeked at the surface like waved lead that has

cooled and set in the smelter's mould. The sky seemed a grey mantle. Flights of troubled grey fowl, kith and

kin with flights of troubled grey vapours among which they were mixed, skimmed low and fitfully over the

waters, as swallows over meadows before storms. Shadows present, foreshadowing deeper shadows to come.

To Captain Delano's surprise, the stranger, viewed through the glass, showed no colours; though to do so

upon entering a haven, however uninhabited in its shores, where but a single other ship might be lying, was

the custom among peaceful seamen of all nations. Considering the lawlessness and loneliness of the spot, and

the sort of stories, at that day, associated with those seas, Captain Delano's surprise might have deepened into

some uneasiness had he not been a person of a singularly undistrustful good nature, not liable, except on

extraordinary and repeated excitement, and hardly then, to indulge in personal alarms, any way involving the

imputation of malign evil in man. Whether, in view of what humanity is capable, such a trait implies, along

with a benevolent heart, more than ordinary quickness and accuracy of intellectual perception, may be left to

the wise to determine.

But whatever misgivings might have obtruded on first seeing the stranger would almost, in any seaman's

mind, have been dissipated by observing that the ship, in navigating into the harbour, was drawing too near

the land, for her own safety's sake, owing to a sunken reef making out off her bow. This seemed to prove her

a stranger, indeed, not only to the sealer, but the island; consequently, she could be no wonted freebooter on

that ocean. With no small interest, Captain Delano continued to watch her− a proceeding not much facilitated

by the vapours partly mantling the hull, through which the far matin light from her cabin streamed

equivocally enough; much like the sun− by this time crescented on the rim of the horizon, and apparently, in

company with the strange ship, entering the harbour− which, wimpled by the same low, creeping clouds,

showed not unlike a Lima intriguante's one sinister eye peering across the Plaza from the Indian loop−hole of

her dusk saya−y−manta.

It might have been but a deception of the vapours, but, the longer the stranger was watched, the more singular

appeared her manoeuvres. Ere long it seemed hard to decide whether she meant to come in or no− what she

wanted, or what she was about. The wind, which had breezed up a little during the night, was now extremely

light and baffling, which the more increased the apparent uncertainty of her movements.

Surmising, at last, that it might be a ship in distress, Captain Delano ordered his whale−boat to be dropped,

and, much to the wary opposition of his mate, prepared to board her, and, at the least, pilot her in. On the

night previous, a fishing−party of the seamen had gone a long distance to some detached rocks out of sight

from the sealer, and, an hour or two before day−break, had returned, having met with no small success.

Presuming that the stranger might have been long off soundings, the good captain put several baskets of the

fish, for presents, into his boat, and so pulled away. From her continuing too near the sunken reef, deeming

her in danger, calling to his men, he made all haste to apprise those on board of their situation. But, some

time ere the boat came up, the wind, light though it was, having shifted, had headed the vessel off, as well as

partly broken the vapours from about her.

Upon gaining a less remote view, the ship, when made signally visible on the verge of the leaden−hued

swells, with the shreds of fog here and there raggedly furring her, appeared like a whitewashed monastery

after a thunder−storm, seen perched upon some dun cliff among the Pyrenees. But it was no purely fanciful

resemblance which now, for a moment, almost led Captain Delano to think that nothing less than a ship−load

of monks was before him. Peering over the bulwarks were what really seemed, in the hazy distance, throngs

of dark cowls; while, fitfully revealed through the open port−holes, other dark moving figures were dimly

descried, as of Black Friars pacing the cloisters.

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Upon a still nigher approach, this appearance was modified, and the true character of the vessel was plain− a

Spanish merchantman of the first class; carrying Negro slaves, amongst other valuable freight, from one

colonial port to another. A very large, and, in its time, a very fine vessel, such as in those days were at

intervals encountered along that main; sometimes superseded Acapulco treasure−ships, or retired frigates of

the Spanish king's navy, which, like superannuated Italian palaces, still, under a decline of masters, preserved

signs of former state.

As the whale−boat drew more and more nigh, the cause of the peculiar pipe−clayed aspect of the stranger

was seen in the slovenly neglect pervading her. The spars, ropes, and great part of the bulwarks looked

woolly, from long unacquaintance with the scraper, tar, and the brush. Her keel seemed laid, her ribs put

together, and she launched, from Ezekiel's Valley of Dry Bones.

In the present business in which she was engaged, the ship's general model and rig appeared to have

undergone no material change from their original warlike and Froissart pattern. However, no guns were seen.

The tops were large, and were railed about with what had once been octagonal net−work, all now in sad

disrepair. These tops hung overhead like three ruinous aviaries, in one of which was seen perched, on a ratlin,

a white noddy, a strange fowl, so called from its lethargic somnambulistic character, being frequently caught

by hand at sea. Battered and mouldy, the castellated forecastle seemed some ancient turret, long ago taken by

assault, and then left to decay. Towards the stern, two high−raised quarter galleries− the balustrades here and

there covered with dry, tindery sea−moss− opening out from the unoccupied state−cabin, whose dead lights,

for all the mild weather, were hermetically closed and caulked− these tenantless balconies hung over the sea

as if it were the grand Venetian canal. But the principal relic of faded grandeur was the ample oval of the

shield−like stern−piece, intricately carved with the arms of Castile and Leon, medallioned about by groups of

mythological or symbolical devices; uppermost and central of which was a dark satyr in a mask, holding his

foot on the prostrate neck of a writhing figure, likewise masked.

Whether the ship had a figure−head, or only a plain beak, was not quite certain, owing to canvas wrapped

about that part, either to protect it while undergoing a refurbishing, or else decently to hide its decay. Rudely

painted or chalked, as in a sailor freak, along the forward side of a sort of pedestal below the canvas, was the

sentence, "Seguid vuestro jefe" (follow your leader); while upon the tarnished head−boards, near by,

appeared, in stately capitals, once gilt, the ship's name, "SAN DOMINICK," each letter streakingly corroded

with tricklings of copper−spike rust; while, like mourning weeds, dark festoons of sea−grass slimily swept to

and fro over the name, with every hearse−like roll of the hull.

As at last the boat was hooked from the bow along toward the gangway amidship, its keel, while yet some

inches separated from the hull, harshly grated as on a sunken coral reef. It proved a huge bunch of

conglobated barnacles adhering below the water to the side like a wen; a token of baffling airs and long calms

passed somewhere in those seas.

Climbing the side, the visitor was at once surrounded by a clamorous throng of whites and blacks, but the

latter outnumbering the former more than could have been expected, Negro transportation−ship as the

stranger in port was. But, in one language, and as with one voice, all poured out a common tale of suffering;

in which the Negresses, of whom there were not a few, exceeded the others in their dolorous vehemence. The

scurvy, together with a fever, had swept off a great part of their number, more especially the Spaniards. Off

Cape Horn, they had narrowly escaped shipwreck; then, for days together, they had lain tranced without

wind; their provisions were low; their water next to none; their lips that moment were baked.

While Captain Delano was thus made the mark of all eager tongues, his one eager glance took in all the faces,

with every other object about him.

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Always upon first boarding a large and populous ship at sea, especially a foreign one, with a nondescript

crew such as Lascars or Manilla men, the impression varies in a peculiar way from that produced by first

entering a strange house with strange inmates in a strange land. Both house and ship, the one by its walls and

blinds, the other by its high bulwarks like ramparts, hoard from view their interiors till the last moment; but

in the case of the ship there is this addition: that the living spectacle it contains, upon its sudden and complete

disclosure, has, in contrast with the blank ocean which zones it, something of the effect of enchantment. The

ship seems unreal; these strange costumes, gestures, and faces, but a shadowy tableau just emerged from the

deep, which directly must receive back what it gave.

Perhaps it was some such influence as above is attempted to be described which, in Captain Delano's mind,

heightened whatever, upon a staid scrutiny, might have seemed unusual; especially the conspicuous figures of

four elderly grizzled Negroes, their heads like black, doddered willow tops, who, in venerable contrast to the

tumult below them, were couched sphynx−like, one on the starboard cat−head, another on the larboard, and

the remaining pair face to face on the opposite bulwarks above the main−chains. They each had bits of

unstranded old junk in their hands, and, with a sort of stoical self−content, were picking the junk into oakum,

a small heap of which lay by their sides. They accompanied the task with a continuous, low, monotonous

chant; droning and drooling away like so many grey−headed bag−pipers playing a funeral march.

The quarter−deck rose into an ample elevated poop, upon the forward verge of which, lifted, like the

oakum−pickers, some eight feet above the general throng, sat along in a row, separated by regular spaces, the

cross−legged figures of six other blacks; each with a rusty hatchet in his hand, which, with a bit of brick and

a rag, he was engaged like a scullion in scouring; while between each two was a small stack of hatchets, their

rusted edges turned forward awaiting a like operation. Though occasionally the four oakum−pickers would

briefly address some person or persons in the crowd below, yet the six hatchet−polishers neither spoke to

others, nor breathed a whisper among themselves, but sat intent upon their task, except at intervals, when,

with the peculiar love in Negroes of uniting industry with pastime, two−and−two they sideways clashed their

hatchets together, like cymbals, with a barbarous din. All six, unlike the generality, had the raw aspect of

unsophisticated Africans.

But the first comprehensive glance which took in those ten figures, with scores less conspicuous, rested but

an instant upon them, as, impatient of the hubbub of voices, the visitor turned in quest of whomsoever it

might be that commanded the ship.

But as if not unwilling to let nature make known her own case among his suffering charge, or else in despair

of restraining it for the time, the Spanish captain, a gentlemanly, reserved−looking, and rather young man to a

stranger's eye, dressed with singular richness, but bearing plain traces of recent sleepless cares and

disquietudes, stood passively by, leaning against the main−mast, at one moment casting a dreary, spiritless

look upon his excited people, at the next an unhappy glance toward his visitor. By his side stood a black of

small stature, in whose rude face, as occasionally, like a shepherd's dog, he mutely turned it up into the

Spaniard's, sorrow and affection were equally blended.

Struggling through the throng, the American advanced to the Spaniard, assuring him of his sympathies, and

offering to render whatever assistance might be in his power. To which the Spaniard returned, for the present,

but grave and ceremonious acknowledgments, his national formality dusked by the saturnine mood of ill

health.

But losing no time in mere compliments, Captain Delano returning to the gangway, had his baskets of fish

brought up; and as the wind still continued light, so that some hours at least must elapse ere the ship could be

brought to the anchorage, he bade his men return to the sealer, and fetch back as much water as the whaleboat

could carry, with whatever soft bread the steward might have, all the remaining pumpkins on board, with a

box of sugar, and a dozen of his private bottles of cider.

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Not many minutes after the boat's pushing off, to the vexation of all, the wind entirely died away, and the tide

turning, began drifting back the ship helplessly seaward. But trusting this would not last, Captain Delano

sought with good hopes to cheer up the strangers, feeling no small satisfaction that, with persons in their

condition he could− thanks to his frequent voyages along the Spanish main− converse with some freedom in

their native tongue.

While left alone with them, he was not long in observing some things tending to heighten his first

impressions; but surprise was lost in pity, both for the Spaniards and blacks, alike evidently reduced from

scarcity of water and provisions; while long−continued suffering seemed to have brought out the less

good−natured qualities of the Negroes, besides, at the same time, impairing the Spaniard's authority over

them. But, under the circumstances, precisely this condition of things was to have been anticipated. In armies,

navies, cities, or families− in nature herself− nothing more relaxes good order than misery. Still, Captain

Delano was not without the idea, that had Benito Cereno been a man of greater energy, misrule would hardly

have come to the present pass. But the debility, constitutional or induced by the hardships, bodily and mental,

of the Spanish captain, was too obvious to be overlooked. A prey to settled dejection, as if long mocked with

hope he would not now indulge it, even when it had ceased to be a mock, the prospect of that day or evening

at furthest, lying at anchor, with plenty of water for his people, and a brother captain to counsel and befriend,

seemed in no perceptible degree to encourage him. His mind appeared unstrung, if not still more seriously

affected. Shut up in these oaken walls, chained to one dull round of command, whose unconditionality cloyed

him, like some hypochondriac abbot he moved slowly about, at times suddenly pausing, starting, or staring,

biting his lip, biting his finger−nail, flushing, paling, twitching his beard, with other symptoms of an absent

or moody mind. This distempered spirit was lodged, as before hinted, in as distempered a frame. He was

rather tall, but seemed never to have been robust, and now with nervous suffering was almost worn to a

skeleton. A tendency to some pulmonary complaint appeared to have been lately confirmed. His voice was

like that of one with lungs half gone, hoarsely suppressed, a husky whisper. No wonder that, as in this state

he tottered about, his private servant apprehensively followed him. Sometimes the Negro gave his master his

arm, or took his handkerchief out of his pocket for him; performing these and similar offices with that

affectionate zeal which transmutes into something filial or fraternal acts in themselves but menial; and which

has gained for the Negro the repute of making the most pleasing body−servant in the world; one, too, whom a

master need be on no stiffly superior terms with, but may treat with familiar trust; less a servant than a

devoted companion.

Marking the noisy indocility of the blacks in general, as well as what seemed the sullen inefficiency of the

whites, it was not without humane satisfaction that Captain Delano witnessed the steady good conduct of

Babo.

But the good conduct of Babo, hardly more than the ill−behaviour of others, seemed to withdraw the

half−lunatic Don Benito from his cloudy languor. Not that such precisely was the impression made by the

Spaniard on the mind of his visitor. The Spaniard's individual unrest was, for the present, but noted as a

conspicuous feature in the ship's general affliction. Still, Captain Delano was not a little concerned at what he

could not help taking for the time to be Don Benito's unfriendly indifference toward himself. The Spaniard's

manner, too, conveyed a sort of sour and gloomy disdain, which he seemed at no pains to disguise. But this

the American in charity ascribed to the harassing effects of sickness, since, in former instances, he had noted

that there are peculiar natures on whom prolonged physical suffering seems to cancel every social instinct of

kindness; as if forced to black bread themselves, they deemed it but equity that each person coming nigh

them should, indirectly, by some slight or affront, be made to partake of their fare.

But ere long Captain Delano bethought him that, indulgent as he was at the first, in judging the Spaniard, he

might not, after all, have exercised charity enough. At bottom it was Don Benito's reserve which displeased

him; but the same reserve was shown toward all but his personal attendant. Even the formal reports which,

according to sea−usage, were at stated times made to him by some petty underling (either a white, mulatto or

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black), he hardly had patience enough to listen to, without betraying contemptuous aversion. His manner

upon such occasions was, in its degree, not unlike that which might be supposed to have been his imperial

countryman's, Charles V., just previous to the anchoritish retirement of that monarch from the throne.

This splenetic disrelish of his place was evinced in almost every function pertaining to it. Proud as he was

moody, he condescended to no personal mandate. Whatever special orders were necessary, their delivery was

delegated to his body−servant, who in turn transferred them to their ultimate destination, through runners,

alert Spanish boys or slave boys, like pages or pilot−fish within easy call continually hovering round Don

Benito. So that to have beheld this undemonstrative invalid gliding about, apathetic and mute, no landsman

could have dreamed that in him was lodged a dictatorship beyond which, while at sea, there was no earthly

appeal.

Thus, the Spaniard, regarded in his reserve, seemed as the involuntary victim of mental disorder. But, in fact,

his reserve might, in some degree, have proceeded from design. If so, then in Don Benito was evinced the

unhealthy climax of that icy though conscientious policy, more or less adopted by all commanders of large

ships, which, except in signal emergencies, obliterates alike the manifestation of sway with every trace of

sociality; transforming the man into a block, or rather into a loaded cannon, which, until there is call for

thunder, has nothing to say.

Viewing him in this light, it seemed but a natural token of the perverse habit induced by a long course of such

hard self−restraint, that, notwithstanding the present condition of his ship, the Spaniard should still persist in

a demeanour, which, however harmless− or it may be, appropriate− in a well−appointed vessel, such as the

San Dominick might have been at the outset of the voyage, was anything but judicious now. But the Spaniard

perhaps thought that it was with captains as with gods: reserve, under all events, must still be their cue. But

more probably this appearance of slumbering dominion might have been but an attempted disguise to

conscious imbecility− not deep policy, but shallow device. But be all this as it might, whether Don Benito's

manner was designed or not, the more Captain Delano noted its pervading reserve, the less he felt uneasiness

at any particular manifestation of that reserve toward himself.

Neither were his thoughts taken up by the captain alone. Wonted to the quiet orderliness of the sealer's

comfortable family of a crew, the noisy confusion of the San Dominick's suffering host repeatedly challenged

his eye. Some prominent breaches not only of discipline but of decency were observed. These Captain

Delano could not but ascribe, in the main, to the absence of those subordinate deck−officers to whom, along

with higher duties, is entrusted what may be styled the police department of a populous ship. True, the old

oakum−pickers appeared at times to act the part of monitorial constables to their countrymen, the blacks; but

though occasionally succeeding in allaying trifling outbreaks now and then between man and man, they could

do little or nothing toward establishing general quiet. The San Dominick was in the condition of a

transatlantic emigrant ship, among whose multitude of living freight are some individuals, doubtless, as little

troublesome as crates and bales; but the friendly remonstrances of such with their ruder companions are of

not so much avail as the unfriendly arm of the mate. What the San Dominick wanted was, what the emigrant

ship has, stern superior officers. But on these decks not so much as a fourth mate was to be seen.

The visitor's curiosity was roused to learn the particulars of those mishaps which had brought about such

absenteeism, with its consequences; because, though deriving some inkling of the voyage from the wails

which at the first moment had greeted him, yet of the details no clear understanding had been had. The best

account would, doubtless, be given by the captain. Yet at first the visitor was loth to ask it, unwilling to

provoke some distant rebuff. But plucking up courage, he at last accosted Don Benito, renewing the

expression of his benevolent interest, adding, that did he (Captain Delano) but know the particulars of the

ship's misfortunes, he would, perhaps, be better able in the end to relieve them. Would Don Benito favour

him with the whole story?

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Benito Cereno and Billy Budd 6

Don Benito faltered; then, like some somnambulist suddenly interfered with, vacantly stared at his visitor,

and ended by looking down on the deck. He maintained this posture so long, that Captain Delano, almost

equally disconcerted, and involuntarily almost as rude, turned suddenly from him, walking forward to accost

one of the Spanish seamen for the desired information. But he had hardly gone five paces, when with a sort of

eagerness Don Benito invited him back, regretting his momentary absence of mind, and professing readiness

to gratify him.

While most part of the story was being given, the two captains stood on the after part of the main−deck, a

privileged spot, no one being near but the servant.

"It is now a hundred and ninety days," began the Spaniard, in his husky whisper, "that this ship, well

officered and well manned, with several cabin passengers− some fifty Spaniards in all− sailed from Buenos

Ayres bound to Lima, with a general cargo, Paraguay tea and the like− and," pointing forward, "that parcel of

Negroes, now not more than a hundred and fifty, as you see, but then numbering over three hundred souls.

Off Cape Horn we had heavy gales. In one moment, by night, three of my best officers, with fifteen sailors,

were lost, with the main−yard; the spar snapping under them in the slings, as they sought, with heavers, to

beat down the icy sail. To lighten the hull, the heavier sacks of mata were thrown into the sea, with most of

the water−pipes lashed on deck at the time. And this last necessity it was, combined with the prolonged

detentions afterwards experienced, which eventually brought about our chief causes of suffering. When−"

Here there was a sudden fainting attack of his cough, brought on, no doubt, by his mental distress. His servant

sustained him, and drawing a cordial from his pocket placed it to his lips. He a little revived. But unwilling to

leave him unsupported while yet imperfectly restored, the black with one arm still encircled his master, at the

same time keeping his eye fixed on his face, as if to watch for the first sign of complete restoration, or

relapse, as the event might prove.

The Spaniard proceeded, but brokenly and obscurely, as one in a dream.

−"Oh, my God! rather than pass through what I have, with joy I would have hailed the most terrible gales;

but−"

His cough returned and with increased violence; this subsiding, with reddened lips and closed eyes he fell

heavily against his supporter.

"His mind wanders. He was thinking of the plague that followed the gales," plaintively sighed the servant;

"my poor, poor master!" wringing one hand, and with the other wiping the mouth. "But be patient, Senor,"

again turning to Captain Delano, "these fits do not last long; master will soon be himself."

Don Benito reviving, went on; but as this portion of the story was very brokenly delivered, the substance only

will here be set down.

It appeared that after the ship had been many days tossed in storms off the Cape, the scurvy broke out,

carrying off numbers of the whites and blacks. When at last they had worked round into the Pacific, their

spars and sails were so damaged, and so inadequately handled by the surviving mariners, most of whom were

become invalids, that, unable to lay her northerly course by the wind, which was powerful, the unmanageable

ship for successive days and nights was blown northwestward, where the breeze suddenly deserted her, in

unknown waters, to sultry calms. The absence of the water−pipes now proved as fatal to life as before their

presence had menaced it. Induced, or at least aggravated, by the more than scanty allowance of water, a

malignant fever followed the scurvy; with the excessive heat of the lengthened calm, making such short work

of it as to sweep away, as by billows, whole families of the Africans, and a yet larger number, proportionally,

of the Spaniards, including, by a luckless fatality, every officer on board. Consequently, in the smart west

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Benito Cereno and Billy Budd 7

winds eventually following the calm, the already rent sails having to be simply dropped, not furled, at need,

had been gradually reduced to the beggar's rags they were now. To procure substitutes for his lost sailors, as

well as supplies of water and sails, the captain at the earliest opportunity had made for Baldivia, the

southermost civilized port of Chili and South America; but upon nearing the coast the thick weather had

prevented him from so much as sighting that harbour. Since which period, almost without a crew, and almost

without canvas and almost without water, and at intervals giving its added dead to the sea, the San Dominick

had been battle−dored about by contrary winds, inveigled by currents, or grown weedy in calms. Like a man

lost in woods, more than once she had doubled upon her own track.

"But throughout these calamities," huskily continued Don Benito, painfully turning in the half embrace of his

servant, "I have to thank those Negroes you see, who, though to your inexperienced eyes appearing unruly,

have, indeed, conducted themselves with less of restlessness than even their owner could have thought

possible under such circumstances."

Here he again fell faintly back. Again his mind wandered: but he rallied, and less obscurely proceeded.

"Yes, their owner was quite right in assuring me that no fetters would be needed with his blacks; so that

while, as is wont in this transportation, those Negroes have always remained upon deck− not thrust below, as

in the Guineamen− they have, also, from the beginning, been freely permitted to range within given bounds at

their pleasure."

Once more the faintness returned− his mind roved− but, recovering, he resumed:

"But it is Babo here to whom, under God, I owe not only my own preservation, but likewise to him, chiefly,

the merit is due, of pacifying his more ignorant brethren, when at intervals tempted to murmurings."

"Ah, master," sighed the black, bowing his face, "don't speak of me; Babo is nothing; what Babo has done

was but duty."

"Faithful fellow!" cried Captain Delano. "Don Benito, I envy you such a friend; slave I cannot call him."

As master and man stood before him, the black upholding the white, Captain Delano could not but bethink

him of the beauty of that relationship which could present such a spectacle of fidelity on the one hand and

confidence on the other. The scene was heightened by the contrast in dress, denoting their relative positions.

The Spaniard wore a loose Chili jacket of dark velvet; white small clothes and stockings, with silver buckles

at the knee and instep; a high−crowned sombrero, of fine grass; a slender sword, silver mounted, hung from a

knot in his sash; the last being an almost invariable adjunct, more for utility than ornament, of a South

American gentleman's dress to this hour. Excepting when his occasional nervous contortions brought about

disarray, there was a certain precision in his attire, curiously at variance with the unsightly disorder around;

especially in the belittered Ghetto, forward of the main−mast, wholly occupied by the blacks.

The servant wore nothing but wide trousers, apparently, from their coarseness and patches, made out of some

old top−sail; they were clean, and confined at the waist by a bit of unstranded rope, which, with his

composed, deprecatory air at times, made him look something like a begging friar of St. Francis.

However unsuitable for the time and place, at least in the blunt thinking American's eyes, and however

strangely surviving in the midst of all his afflictions, the toilette of Don Benito might not, in fashion at least,

have gone beyond the style of the day among South Americans of his class. Though on the present voyage

sailing from Buenos Ayres, he had avowed himself a native and resident of Chili, whose inhabitants had not

so generally adopted the plain coat and once plebeian pantaloons; but, with a becoming modification, adhered

to their provincial costume, picturesque as any in the world. Still, relatively to the pale history of the voyage,

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BenitoCerenoandBillyBuddHermanMelvilleTableofContentsBenitoCerenoandBillyBudd...........................................................................................................................1HermanMelville........................................................................................

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Melville, Herman - Benito Cereno and Billy Budd.pdf

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Melville, Herman - Benito Cereno and Billy Budd

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