Texas Surgeon: an Autobiography Page: 37
xii, 180 p. ; 21 cm.View a full description of this book.
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that Jackson prepared. Cockroach soup, as the men cheerfully
called it, was a favorite concoction, a sort of watery mulligan
thrown together out of whatever oddments were at hand. The
smell of cockroach soup, mingled with the soft coal gases leak-
ing from the galley stove with every puff of wind, remains with
me yet.
Presently we were crossing the Gulf Stream, with the water
cobalt blue, the air balmy, and flying fish iridescent in their leap-
ings. Unfortunately, being seasick and confined to the galley, I
could not appreciate these delights. My hair, my skin, my clothes
began to smell of galley grease, a keg of which Jackson was
carefully preserving as his cook's perquisite for sale ashore in
making soap. In about three weeks a flat coast line appeared on
the horizon. It was Barbados at last. Around a point and south
we sailed. A carbuncular eminence took shape, which Jackson
said was Mount Hillaby. His irritability, and to a lesser degree
my seasickness, had been diminishing with the latitude.
Bridgetown looked interesting enough from our offshore
anchorage, but, alas, I was not allowed to investigate it. Mr.
Pottle must have sensed my desperation, and so I never saw
anything of the town except white buildings with red roofs in the
distance, set amid a greenery of palm and other appropriate
trees. The bearded (barbado) fig, after which the Portuguese
named the island, remains unknown to me to this day except
through books.
I would not, in any event, have been able to profit from
tropical novelty very much, for I was suffering from what might
be called acute culinary stupefaction. Even in port, it seemed,
the crew had to eat and lightermen have their snacks. Jackson
had mysteriously disappeared the day after we arrived in
Bridgetown, and another Negro had come aboard to replace him.
The new cook was named Baldy, because of his receding hair-
line. He was a very large, slow black man, much older than
Jackson, and of even less determinate geographic connection.
37
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Atkinson, Donald Taylor. Texas Surgeon: an Autobiography, book, 1958; New York. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth143566/m1/49/: accessed April 20, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting University of Texas Health Science Center Libraries.