Queen by Alex Haley Page B

and
    slept pleasantly, rocked by the gentle wind.
        The food was awful but edible, pickled pork and potatoes for the first
        few weeks, dried beef and hardtack later. The lore of the sea fascinated
        him, the defined but easy hierarchy, the absolute power of the captain,
        the endless, easy grumbling of the tars, and the constant cheerful
        resentment by all the seamen of their tantalizing, temperamental bitch
        goddess, the sea, which they loved with all their hearts.
        They talked with him about their country, for which they had a deep and
        abiding affection, and gave him some sense
        BLOODLINES 53
     
    of the awesome size of it. James had always known that America was a large
    country. Now he leamed that the United States was but a small fraction of
    that continent. The physical land itself ranged from the ice-ridden north
    to the tropical south, encompassing mountains and deserts, forests and
    wilderness, and some of the finest farming land in the world. The British
    still ruled the northern part, Canada, the Mexicans controlled the and
    southwest and the legendary California, and the French, under Napoleon,
    had assumed from the Spanish the great southern region of swamps and
    jungle that was known as Florida.
        "Go west," they told him. "A man can find his true self there, and own
        land beyond his imagining, just for the taking. "
        For themselves, they had found their fortune at sea. So many of the young
        men of America went west, to settle the vast new territories, that
        sailors were in short supply, and well paid because of it, They cursed
        the British, who ruled the seas, and frequently stopped and boarded
        American ships, and pressed into service any of the crew who still
        maintained British nationality. They nodded their heads wisely at the
        stories of the savage Indians, but dismissed them as any threat to the
        settled colonies. The Indians were retreating, to the west, before the
        settlers' advance, and soon must stand with their backs to the great
        Pacific Ocean, and then where would they go?
        As they sailed on, he began to understand something of that love, for
        there was only the sea, always the sea, endlessly the sea. fie was lost
        in a world of water and sky, on which the sun rose each morning, and the
        stars and moon each night, and always, the crew told him, where they were
        supposed to be. The small ship became their only world, and each aboard
        it was joined to the others by a strange and powerful sense of community,
        united before a common foe, a common love, that was awesome in its
        breadth and power.
        The storm came, and frightened James at first, for he could not imagine
        that they could survive it. He was forced to sleep in his cabin, when he
        could sleep, and the men with him were as scared as he.
        "Surely America must be heaven," one said. "For you have to go through
        hell to get there. "
    54 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN
     
        He preferred the attitude of the sailors, for they respected the wrath
        of the tempest, and were not overawed by it. They believed in their
        survival because of their skill and seamanship, their stoutly built
        craft, and because they had weathered worse, much worse, before.
        Then winds abated and the seas quieted, and for the next few weeks they
        sailed through calmer water, blue skies, and sunny weather. Flying fishes
        tripped through the whitecaps, and landed sometimes on the deck, and were
        good eating. At night the tars would gather round the capstan and sing
        chanteys, and dance strange steps that were, James guessed, centuries
        old, and known only to men of the sea. He laughed with the others when
        the two apprentices had their cars