Her reception of these was as precarious as the hospitality of a savage nation to sailors shipwrecked on their coast. . . . [I]f they seemed pleased with what they got, and little disposed to criticise or give trouble, it was all very well. But . . . if she disliked what the sailor calls the cut of their jib—or if, above all, they were critical about their accommodations, none so likely as Meg to give them what in her country is called a sloan.