CHAPTER XCIV.

Two weeks, since the date of the preceding chapter, have passed; we

have slept our last, for long years to come, on the English soil. It is

night; and Vivian has been admitted to an interview with his father.

They have been together alone an hour and more, and I and my father

will not disturb them. But the clock strikes--the hour is late--the

ship sails to-night--we should be on board. And as we two stand below,

the door opens in the room above, and a heavy step descends the stairs;

the father is leaning on the son's arm. You should see how timidly the

son guides the halting step. And now, as the light gleams on their

faces, there are tears on Vivian's cheek; but the face of Roland seems

calm and happy. Happy! when about to be separated, perhaps for ever,

from his son? Yes, happy! because he has found a son for the first

time; and is not thinking of years and absence, and the chance of

death--but thankful for the Divine mercy, and cherishing celestial

hope. If ye wonder why Roland is happy in such an hour, how vainly have

I sought to make him breathe, and live, and move before you!

* * * * *

We are on board; our luggage all went first. I had had time, with the

help of a carpenter, to knock up cabins for Vivian, Guy Bolding, and

myself in the hold. For, thinking we could not too soon lay aside the

pretensions of Europe--"_de_-fine-gentlemanise" ourselves, as Trevanion

recommended--we had engaged steerage passage, to the great humouring of

our finances. We had, too, the luxury to be by ourselves, and our own

Cumberland folks were round us, as our friends and servants both.

We are on board, and have looked our last on those we are to leave,

and we stand on deck leaning on each other. We are on board, and the

lights, near and far, shine from the vast city; and the stars are on

high, bright and clear, as for the first mariners of old. Strange

noises, rough voices, and crackling cords, and here and there the sobs

of women, mingling with the oaths of men. Now the swing and heave of

the vessel--the dreary sense of exile that comes when the ship fairly

moves over the waters. And still we stood, and looked, and listened;

silent, and leaning on each other.

Night deepened, the city vanished--not a gleam from its myriad lights!

The river widened and widened. How cold comes the wind!--is that a

gale from the sea? The stars grow faint--the moon has sunk. And now,

how desolate look the waters in the comfortless gray of dawn! Then we

shivered and looked at each other, and muttered something that was not

the thought deepest at our hearts, and crept into our berths--feeling

sure it was not for sleep. And sleep came on us soft and kind. The

ocean lulled the exiles as on a mother's breast.

JONATHAN IN AFRICA.[6]

A new school of novelists is evidently springing up on the western

shores of the Atlantic. The pioneers are already in the field--and

the main body, we suppose, will shortly follow. The style of these

innovators seems a compound imitation of _Gulliver_, _Munchausen_,

_The Arabian Nights_, and _Robinson Crusoe_; the ingredients being

mixed in capricious proportions, well stirred, seasoned with Yankee

bulls and scraps of sea-slang, and served hot--sometimes plain, at

others with a _hors d'oeuvre_ of puffs. We know not how such queer

ragouts affect the public palate; but we are inclined to prefer dishes

of an older fashion. Mr Herman Melville, of New York and the Pacific

Ocean, common sailor, first introduced the new-fangled kickshaw. This

young gentleman has most completely disappointed us. Two or three

years ago, he published two small volumes of sea-faring adventure and

island-rambles, of which we thought more highly than of any first

appearance of the kind we for a long time had witnessed. In the pages

of Maga, where praise is never lightly or lavishly bestowed, we said as

much; and were glad to hope that Typee and Omoo were but an earnest of

even better things. And, therefore, sadly were we disgusted on perusal

of a rubbishing rhapsody, entitled _Mardi, and a Voyage Thither_.

We sat down to it with glee and self-gratulation, and through about

half a volume we got on pleasantly enough. The author was afloat; and

although we found little that would bear comparison with the fine vein

of nautical fun and characteristic delineation which we had enjoyed

on board the Little Jule, and afterwards at Tahiti, yet there was

interest--strong interest at times; and a scene on board a deserted

vessel was particularly exciting,--replete with power of a peculiar

and uncommon kind. But this proved a mere flash in the pan--the ascent

of the rocket which was soon to fall as a stick. An outlandish young

female, one Miss Yillah, makes her first appearance: Taji, the hero and

narrator of the yarn, reaches a cluster of fabulous islands, where the

jealous queen Hautia opens a floral correspondence with him: where the

plumed and turbaned Yoomy sings indifferent doggerel; and Philosopher

Babbalanja unceasingly doth prose; and the Begum of Pimminee holds

drawing-rooms, which are attended by the Fanfums, and the Diddledees,

and the Fiddlefies, and a host of other insular magnates, with names

equally elegant, euphonious, and significant. Why, what trash is

all this!--mingled, too, with attempts at a Rabelaisian vein, and

with strainings at smartness--the style of the whole being affected,

pedantic, and wearisome exceedingly. We are reminded, by certain parts

of _Mardi_, of Foote's nonsense about the nameless lady who "went into

the garden to cut a cabbage-leaf to make an apple-pie;" and at whose

wedding the Joblilies, and the Picninnies, and the Great Panjandrum,

danced till the gunpowder ran out at their boot-heels. Foote wrote his

absurd paragraph, we believe, to try a friend's memory; Mr Melville

has evidently written his unintelligible novel to try the public's

patience. Of three things we are certain, namely, that the Panjandrum

story is quite as easy to understand as _Mardi_; that it is much more

diverting; and, the chief advantage of all, an infinite deal shorter.

[6] _Kaloolah, or Journeyinqs to the Djébel Kumri: an Autobiography of

Jonathan Romer._ Edited by W. S. MAYO, M.D. London: 1849.

_Mardi_, which we dismissed from our mind when we closed it with a yawn

a day or two after its publication, has been recalled to our memory

by another book, also proceeding from America, although published in

London; and which, like Mr Melville's romance, blends the real and

the possible with the ideal and the fantastic. _Kaloolah_ (Heaven

help these Yankee nomenclators) professes to be the autobiography of

Jonathan Romer, a young Nantucket sailor, to whose narrative, during

his absence in the interior of Africa, one of his countrymen, Dr W.

S. Mayo, obligingly acts as editor. Most readers will probably be

of opinion that the American M.D. might claim a nearer interest in

the literary bantling--the first-born, we apprehend, of his own pen

and imagination. But our business is with the book, and not with the

author, whose name, whether Romer or Mayo, is as yet unknown to fame,

but who need not despair of achieving reputation. _Kaloolah_ combines

with certain faults, which may presently be indicated, some very

excellent qualities, and has several chapters, whereof any one contains

more real good stuff, and ingenuity, and amusement, than the whole of

the second and third volumes of _Mardi_, reduced to a concentrated

essence. Besides, it is manifest that the two books must be viewed

and judged differently--one as a first, and by no means unpromising

attempt; the other, as the backsliding performance of a man who has

proved himself capable of far better things.

Before commencing his own story, young Jonathan Romer introduces us to

his ancestors, and asserts his right to a life of adventure. "Descended

on both sides of the house from some of the earliest settlers of

Nantucket, and more or less intimately related to the Coffins, the

Folgers, the Macys, and the Starbucks of that adventurous population,

it would seem that I had a natural right to a roving disposition, and

to a life of peril, privation, and vicissitude. Nearly all the male

members of my family, for several generations, have been followers

of the sea: some of them in the calm and peaceful employment of the

merchant-service; others, and by far the greater number, in the more

dangerous pursuit of the ocean monster." After relating some of the

feats of his family, and glancing at his own childhood, which gave

early indications of the bold and restless spirit that animated him at

a mature period, Jonathan presents himself to his readers at the age of

eighteen--a stalwart stripling and idle student; the best rider, shot,

swimmer, and leaper for many miles around, with little taste for books,

and a very decided one for rambling in the woods with rifle and rod. At

this time the academy, of which he had for four years been an inmate,

is nearly broken up by what is called "a revival of religion;" in other

words, a violent fit of fanatical enthusiasm, provoked and fed by

Baptist and Methodist preachers. Pupils and teachers alike go mad with

fervent zeal, classes are at an end, unceasing prayer is substituted

for study, and Jonathan, who ls one of the few unregenerated, walks

into the forest, and knocks the head off a partridge with a rifle-ball.

The bird is picked up, and the excellence of the aim applauded by an

old trapper and hunter, Joe Downs by name, well known along the shores

of the Rackett and Grass rivers, in the northern and uninhabited part

of the state of New York. Joe is not the wild, semi-Indian trapper of

the south and west, whom Sealsfield and Ruxton have so graphically

sketched; there is as much difference between the two characters as

between a sailor in the coasting trade and a Pacific Ocean beachcomber.

There is nothing of the half-horse, half-alligator style about Joe,

whose manner is so mild, and his coat so decent, that he has been taken

for a country parson. He despises the Redskins, sets no value on their

scalps, and would not shed their blood, except in self-defence. How he

had once been thus compelled to do so, he relates to Jonathan in the

course of their first conversation.

"It was the way towards Tupper's lake. There had been a light

fall of snow, and I was scouting round, when I happened to make a

circumbendibus, and came across my own track, and there I saw the

marks of an Indian's foot right on my trail. Thinks I, that is

kind of queer; the fellow must have been following me; howsomever

I'll try him, and make sure; so I made another large circle, and

again struck my own track, and there was the tarnal Indian's foot

again. Says I, this won't do; I must find out what this customer

wants, and how he'll have it. So I stopped short, and soon got

sight of him; he knew that I saw him, so he came along up, in the

most friendly manner you can think. But I didn't like his looks;

he was altogether too darned glad to see me. He had no gun, but he

had an almighty long-handled tomahawk, and a lot of skins and real

traps. Thinks I, may be, old fellow, your gun has burst, or you've

pawned it for rum, and you can't raise skins enough to redeem it,

and you want mine, and perhaps you'll get it.

"At last I grew kind of nervous; I knew the fellow would hatchet

me if I gave him a chance, and yet I didn't want to shoot him

right down just on suspicion. But I thought, if I let him cut my

throat first, it would be too late to shoot him afterwards. So I

concluded that the best way would be to give him a chance to play

his hand; and if so be he'd lead the wrong card, why I should

have a right to take the trick. Just then, at the right time, a

partridge flew into a clump that stood five or six rods off. So I

kind of 'noeuvred round a little. I drew out my ramrod, as if to

feel whether the ball in my rifle was well down; but instead of

returning it again, I kept it in my hand, and, without letting the

vagabond see me, I got out a handful of powder. I then sauntered

off to the bush, shot the partridge, and in an instant passed my

hand over the muzzle of my rifle, and dropped the powder in. I

picked up the bird, and then just took and run my ramrod right

down upon the powder. Now, he thought, was his chance before I

loaded my gun again. He came towards me with his hatchet in his

hand. I saw that he was determined to act wicked, and began to

back off; he still came on. I lowered my rifle, and told him to

keep away. He raised his tomahawk, gave one yell, and bounded

right at me. When he was just about three or four feet from the

muzzle, I fired. You never see a fellow jump so. He kicked his

heels up in the air, and came down plump on his head, dead as

Julius Cæsar. He never winked; the ramrod--a good, hard, tough

piece of hickory--had gone clean through him, and stuck out about

two feet from his back. Served him right; didn't it?"

The old trapper urges Jonathan to accompany him on an expedition into

the woods, promising, as an inducement, to put him "right alongside

the biggest catamount he has ever seen," and to let him fight it

out, with rifle, hatchet, and knife, without making or meddling in

the contest. He also pledges himself to show him a fishpond, "where

the youngest infants, of a genteel pickerelto family, weigh at least

three pounds." Such inducements are irresistible. Jonathan packs up a

brace of blankets and his shooting and fishing fixings, and goes off

in the canoe with Joe Downs on a pleasant up-stream cruise, enlivened

by a succession of beautiful scenery, and by the varied and original

conversation of his companion. On their way they fell in with a party

of Indians, amongst them one Blacksnake, a brother of the gentleman

whom Joe had spitted on his ramrod. He suspects Joe of having shot his

kinsman, and Joe strongly suspects him of having already attempted to

revenge his death.

"'I was leaning out of the second story doorway of Jones's shop

one day,' said Joe, 'looking across the river, when, whizz, a

rifle bullet came and buried itself in the doorpost. I hain't

the least doubt that that very identical Blacksnake sent it.

Thank God, his aim was not as his will! He's a bad chap. Why, I

really believe it was he who murdered my old friend Dan White

the trapper. If I only knew it was the fact, I wish I may be

stuck, forked end uppermost, in a coon hole, if I wouldn't send a

ball through his painted old braincase, this 'ere very identical

minute. Darn your skin!' energetically growled Joe, shaking his

fist at the distant canoe."

It would have saved Mr Downs some trouble and suffering if he had

yielded to the impulse, and expended half-an-ounce of lead upon

Blacksnake, who, about a week later, sneaks up, with two companions,

to the trapper's pine-log fire, and shoots the unfortunate Joe, but

is shot down himself, the very next moment, by Jonathan Romer, whose

double-barrel settles two of the murderers, and then descends with

crushing force upon the cranium of the third. Joe not being dead,

although very badly wounded, his young companion conveys him to a cave,

whose hidden entrance the trapper had revealed to him the previous day,

and there tends him till he is able to bear removal. With his committal

to the hands of a village surgeon, Mr Romer's backwoods adventures

terminate, a source of regret to the reader, since they are more lively

and attractive than some subsequent portions of the book, evidently

deemed by the author more interesting and important, and therefore

dwelt upon at greater length. Indeed it is our opinion that the author

of _Kaloolah_ is mistaken, as young authors constantly are, in the real

scope and nature of his own abilities, and that he would shine much

more in a novel of backwoods life, or nautical adventure, than in the

mixed style he has selected for his first attempt, which is a sort of

mosaic, distinguished rather for variety and vividness of colour than

for harmony and regularity of design.

Jonathan reaches home in time to receive the last adieu of his mother,

a worthy but eccentric old lady, who had fitted out her son, on his

departure for school, with a winding-sheet, amongst other necessaries,

that he might be buried decently should he die far from his friends,

and that he might be reminded of his mortality as often as he emptied

his trunk. It was a curious conceit, but, as Jonathan observes, she

was from Nantucket, and they are all queer people there, and filial

affection induced him long to preserve the shroud. Mrs Romer dead, her

son applies to the study of surgery, gets himself into trouble by a

body-snatching exploit, has to levant to New York, and there, finding

he is still in danger from the friends of the disinterred corpse, who

have set the police upon his track, ships himself on board the fine

fore-topsail schooner, "Lively Anne," bound for the Western Islands,

and commanded by Captain Coffin, an old shipmate of his father's.

In this smart little craft, he sees some country and more water,

until, upon the voyage from the Azores to Malaga, a white squall or a

waterspout--which of the two he could never ascertain--capsizes the

schooner and dashes him senseless down the hatchway, whence he was just

emerging, in alarm at the sudden uproar on deck. On recovering himself,

he finds the vessel dismasted, the deck swept of all its fixtures, and

the captain and crew missing. Doubtless they had been hurled into the

waves by the same terrible force that had shattered the bulwarks and

carried away boats, casks, and galley. The horizon was now clear, not a

sail was in sight, and Jonathan Romer was alone on a helpless wreck in

the middle of the wide ocean. But he was a man of resource and mettle,

whom it was hard to discourage or intimidate; and finding the schooner

made no water, he righted her as well as he could, and resigned himself

to float at the will of the wind until he should meet a rescuing

sail. This did not occur for some weeks, during which he floated

past Teneriffe in the night, within hail of fishermen, who would not

approach him for fear of the quarantine laws. At last, sitting over his

solitary dinner, he perceived a ship heading up for the schooner.

"As she came on, I had full time to note all her beautiful

proportions. She was small, apparently not above 300 tons,

and had a peculiarly trim and clipper-like look. Her bright

copper, flashing occasionally in the sunlight, showed that she

was in light sailing trim; whilst from the cut of her sails,

the symmetrical arrangement of her spars and rigging, and her

quarter-boats, I concluded she must be a man-of-war. Passing me

about half a mile astern, she stood on for a little distance,

then, hoisting the bilious-looking flag of Spain, she tacked

and ran for me, backing her main-topsail within twenty yards of

my larboard beam. Her quarter-boat was immediately lowered, and

half-a-dozen fellows, in red caps and flannel shirts, jumped into

it, followed by an officer in a blue velvet jacket, with a strip

of gold lace upon his shoulders, and a broad-brimmed straw hat

upon his head. I ran below, stuffed all the money that I had in

gold--about a thousand dollars--into my pockets, and got upon

deck again just as the boat touched the side."

The precaution was a good one: the saucy Bonito, Pedro Garbez master,

was bound from Cuba to the coast of Africa, with a cut-throat crew

and an empty slave-deck. Owing to an accident, she had sailed without

a surgeon, and Romer was well received and treated so soon as his

profession was known. When he discovered the ship's character, he would

gladly have left her, but means were wanting, for the Bonito loved not

intercourse with passing craft, and touched nowhere until she reached

her destination--Cabenda Bay, on the western coast of Africa. There

being no slaves at Cabenda, it was resolved to run a few miles up the

Congo river.

"We at length reached Loonbee, and anchored off the town, which is

the chief market or slave-depot for Embomma. It consists of about

a hundred huts of palm-leaves, with two or three block-houses,

where the slaves are confined. About two hundred slaves were

already collected, and more were on their way down the river, and

from different towns in the interior. After presents for the King

of Embomma, and for the Mafooka (a sort of chief of the board of

slave-trade,) and other officials, had been made, and a deal of

brandy drunk, we landed, and in company with several Fukas, or

native merchants, and two or three Portuguese, went to take a

look at the slaves. Each dealer paraded his gang for inspection,

and loudly dilated upon their respective qualities. They were all

entirely naked, and of all ages, sexes, and conditions, and all

had an air of stolid indifference, varied only in some of them by

an expression of surprise and fear at sight of the white men."

In one of these unfortunate groups of dingy humanity, Romer was struck

by the appearance of a young girl, whose features widely differed

from the usual African stamp, and whose complexion, amongst a white

population, would not have been deemed too dark for a brunette. Her

gracefully curling hair contrasted with the woolly polls of her

companions; her eyes were large and expressive, and her form elegant,

but then emaciated by fatigue and ill-treatment. This is Kaloolah.

On inquiry of the slave-dealer, a great burly negro, wielding a long

thong of plaited buffalo hide, Romer learned that she is of a far

distant nation, called the Gerboo Blanda, who dwell in stone houses on

an extensive plain. The slave-dealer knows them only by report, and

Kaloolah and her brother, who is near at hand, are the first specimens

he has seen of this remote tribe. He had bought her two months' journey

off, and then she had already come a long distance. And now that he had

got them to the coast, he esteems them of small value compared to the

full-blooded blacks; for Kaloolah has pined herself away to a shadow,

and her brother, Enphadde, is bent upon suicide, and cannot be trusted

with unfettered hands; so that for thirty dollars Romer buys them both.

The Bonito having been driven out to sea by the approach of a British

cruiser, he passes some days on shore with his new purchases; during

which time, with a rapidity bordering on the miraculous, he acquires

sufficient of their language, and they of his, to carry on a sort of

piebald conversation, to learn the history of these pale Africans, and

some particulars of their mysterious country.

"The Gerboo Blanda, I found, was a name given to their country by

the Jagas, that its true name was Framazugda, and that the people

were called Framazugs. That it was situated at a great distance

in the interior, in a direction west by north, and that it was

surrounded by negro and savage nations, through whom a trade was

carried on with people at the north-west and east, none of whom,

however, were ever seen at Framazugda, as the trade had to pass

through a number of hands. Enphadde represented the country to

be of considerable extent, consisting mostly of a lofty plateau

or elevated plain, and exceedingly populous, containing numerous

large cities, surrounded by high walls, and filled with houses of

stone. Several large streams and lakes watered the soil, which,

according to his account, was closely cultivated, and produced

in abundance the greatest variety of trees, fruits, flowers,

and grain. Over this country ruled Selha Shounsé, the father of

Enphadde and Kaloolah, as king. It was in going from the capital

to one of the royal gardens that their escort was attacked by

a party of blacks from the lowlands, the attendants killed or

dispersed, and the young prince and princess carried off."

Thirty dollars could hardly be deemed a heavy price for the son and

daughter of the great Shounsé, and Jonathan was well pleased with his

bargain, although it was not yet clear how he should realise a profit;

but meanwhile it was something to be the proprietor of their royal

highnesses of Framazugda; something too to gaze into Kaloolah's bright

black eyes, and listen to her dulcet tones, as she warbled one of her

country's ditties about the Fultul, a sweet-scented lily flourishing

beside the rivulets of her native mountains. The verses, by the bye,

are not to be commended in Mr Romer's version; they perhaps sounded

better in the original Framazug, and when issuing from the sweet lips

of Kaloolah.

Instead of a week, the Bonito was month absent, having been caught in

a calm. Captain Pedro Garbez promised the Virgin Mary the value of a

young negro in wax-lights for a capful of wind, but in vain; and he was

fain to tear the hair from his head with impatience. Meanwhile Jonathan

had caught a fever in the swamps of Congo, and Kaloolah had made his

chicken-broth, and tended him tenderly, and restored him to health,

although he was still so altered in appearance that Garbez knew him not

when he mounted the side of the slaver. All speed was now made to buy

and ship a cargo. The account of the latter process is interesting,

and, we have no doubt, perfectly authentic; for although the author of

_Kaloolah_ has chosen to interlard, and perhaps deteriorate his book by

strange stories of imaginary countries, animals, flowers, &c., it is

not difficult to distinguish between his fact and his fiction, and to

recognise the internal evidence of veracity and personal observation.

A short extract may here with propriety be made, for the benefit of

anti-slavery philanthropists.

"The first slaves that came on board were taken below the

berth-deck, and arranged upon a temporary slave-deck placed over

the water-casks, and at a distance of not more than three feet and

a half from the deck overhead.... The slaves were arranged in four

ranks. When lying down, the heads of the two outer ranks touched

the sides of the ship, their feet pointing inboard or athwart the

vessel. They, of course, occupied a space fore and aft the ship,

of about six feet on either side, or twelve feet of the whole

breadth. At the feet of the outside rank came the heads of the

inner row. They took up a space of six feet more on either side,

or together twelve feet. There was still left a space running up

and down the centre of the deck, two or three feet in breadth;

along this were stretched single slaves, between the feet of the

two inner rows, so that, when all were lying down, almost every

square foot of the deck was covered with a mass of human flesh.

Not the slightest space was allowed between the individuals of

the ranks, but the whole were packed as closely as they could be,

each slave having just room enough to stretch himself out flat

upon his back, and no more. In this way about two hundred and

fifty were crowded upon the slave-deck, and as many more upon the

berth-deck. Horrible as this may seem, it was nothing compared

to the 'packing' generally practised by slavers. Captain Garbez

boasted that he had tried both systems, tight packing and loose

packing, thoroughly, and found the latter the best.

"'If you call this loose packing,' I replied, 'have the goodness

to explain what you mean by tight packing?'

"'Why, tight packing consists in making a row sit with their legs

stretched apart, and then another row is placed between their

legs, and so on, until the whole deck is filled. In the one case

each slave has as much room as he can cover lying; in the other

only as much room as he can occupy sitting. With tight packing

this craft ought to stow fifteen hundred.'"

The Bonito was not above three hundred tons. Such are the blessings for

which the negroes are indebted to the tender-mercied emancipators who

have ruined our West Indian colonies.

"'When it comes to closing the hatches,' (in the event of a

gale) said Captain Pedro, 'it is all up with the voyage. You can

hardly save enough to pay expenses. They die like leeches in a

thunderstorm. I was once in a little schooner with three hundred

on board, and we were compelled to lie-to for three days. It was

the worst sea I ever saw, and came near swamping us several times.

We lost two hundred and fifty slaves in that gale. We couldn't

get at the dead ones to throw them overboard very handily, and so

those that didn't die from want of air were killed by the rolling

and tumbling about of the corpses. Of the living ones some had

their limbs broken, and every one had the flesh of his leg worn to

the bone, by the shackle irons.'

"'Good God! and you still pursue the horrible trade?'

"'Certainly; why not? Despite of accidents the trade is

profitable, and, for the cruelty of it, no one is to blame except

the English. Were it not for them, large and roomy vessels would

be employed, and it would be an object to bring the slaves

over with every comfort, and in as good condition as possible.

Now, every consideration must be sacrificed to the one great

object--escape from capture by the British cruisers.'

"I had no wish to reply to the captain's argument. One might as

well reply to a defence of blasphemy or murder. Giddy, faint,

and sick, I turned with loathing from the fiends in human guise,

and sought the more genial companionship of the inmates of my

state-room."

These were Kaloolah and Enphadde. To conceal the beauty of the former,

perilous amidst the lawless crew of the slaver, Jonathan had marked

her face with caustic, producing black spots which had the appearance

of disease. This temporary disfigurement secured her from licentious

outrage, but not from harsh treatment. Monte, second captain of

the Bonito, was an ex-pirate, whose vessel had been destroyed by

Yankee cruisers. To spite Romer, whom he detested as an American, he

threatened to send Kaloolah and her brother amongst the slaves, and

took every opportunity of abusing them. Chapter xxi. passes wholly on

board the slaver, and is excellent of its kind. The Bonito is chased

by a man-of-war, but escapes. At daybreak, whilst lying in his berth,

Romer hears a bustle on deck, followed by shrill cries and plunges in

the water. The following is good:--

"I jumped from my berth and stepped out upon deck. A dense fog

brooded upon the surface of the ocean, and closely enveloped the

ship--standing up on either side, like huge perpendicular walls

of granite, and leaving a comparatively clear space--the area of

the deck and the height of the main-topmast crosstrees. Inboard,

the sight ranged nearly free fore-and-aft the ship, but seaward no

eye could penetrate, more than a yard or two, the solid-looking

barrier of vapour. A man standing on the taffrail might have seen

the catheads the whole length of the deck, whilst at the same

time, behind him, the end of the spanker boom, projecting over

the water, was lost in the mist. I looked up at the perpendicular

walls and the lofty arch overhead with feelings of awe, and, I may

add, fear. Cursed, indeed, must be our craft, when the genius of

the mist so carefully avoided the pollution of actual contact. His

rolling legions were close around us, but vapoury horse and misty

foot shrank back affrighted from the horrors of our blood-stained

decks."

The phenomenon was doubtless attributable to the hot air generated in

the crowded 'tween-decks. The cries and plashings that had startled

Jonathan were soon explained. Virulent ophthalmia raged on board, and

Monte was drowning the blind, whose value of course departed with their

eyesight. A blind slave was "an encumbrance, an unsaleable article,

a useless expense. Pitch him overboard! Twenty-five to-day, and a

dozen more to-morrow!" But retribution was at hand, threatened, at

least, by a British brig-of-war, which appeared when the fog cleared,

at about a mile and a half to windward. During the chase, Monte,

casually jostled by Kaloolah, struck her to the deck, and a furious

scuffle ensued between him and Jonathan, who at last, seeing some of

the crew approaching, knife in hand, leaped overboard, dragging his

antagonist with him, and followed by Enphadde and Kaloolah. After a

deep dive, during which Monte's tenacious grasp was at last relaxed,

the intrepid Jonathan regained the surface, where he and his friends

and enemy easily supported themselves till picked up by the brig. The

swift slaver escaped. Monte was put in irons, Romer and his Framazugdan

friends were made much of by Captain Halsey and the officers of her

Majesty's brig Flyaway, and landed in the picturesque but pestilent

shores of Sierra Leone. Then Kaloolah and her brother propose to seek

their way homewards, and Jonathan takes ship for Liverpool. Previously

to his departure, there are some love passages between the Yankee and

the Princess of Framazugda. These are not particularly successful.

Sentiment is not Dr Mayo's _forte_: he is much happier in scenes of

bustle and adventure--when urging his weary dromedary across boundless

tracts of sand, or waging deadly combat with the fierce inmates of

African jungles. His book will delight Mr Van Amburgh. There is a duel

between a lion and a boa that we make no doubt of seeing dramatised

at Astley's, as soon as a serpent can be tamed sufficiently for the

performance. That Dr Mayo's lions are of the very first magnitude, the

following description shows:--"His body was hardly less in size than

that of a dray-horse; his paw as large as the foot of an elephant;

while his head!--what can be said of such a head? Concentrate the

fury, the power, the capacity, and the disposition for evil of a dozen

thunderstorms into a round globe about two feet in diameter, and one

would then be able to get an idea of the terrible expression of that

head and face, enveloped and set off as it was by the dark framework

of bristling mane!" This pleasing quadruped, disturbed in its forest

solitude by the advent of Jonathan and the fair Kaloolah, who have

wandered, lover-like, to some distance from their bivouac, at once

prepares to breakfast upon them. Jonathan had imprudently laid down

his gun to pluck wild honeysuckles for his mistress, when the lion,

stepping in, cuts him off from his weapon. Suddenly "the light figure

of Kaloolah rushed past me: 'Fly, fly, Jon'than!' she wildly exclaimed,

as she dashed forward directly towards the lion. Quick as thought, I

divined her purpose, and sprang after her, grasping her dress, and

pulling her forcibly back, almost from within those formidable jaws.

The astonished animal gave several jumps sideways and backwards,

and stopped, crouching to the ground, and growling and lashing his

sides with renewed fury. It was clearly taken aback by our unexpected

charge upon him, but yet was not to be frightened into abandoning his

prey. His mouth was made up for us, and there could be no doubt, if

his motions _were_ a little slow, that he considered us as good as

gorged." Pulling back Kaloolah, and drawing his knife, Romer awaits,

with desperate determination, the monster's terrible onslaught, when

an unexpected ally arrives to the rescue. "It seemed as if one of the

gigantic creepers I have mentioned had suddenly quitted the canopy

above, and, endowed with life and a huge pair of widely distended

jaws, had darted with the rapidity of lightning upon the crouching

beast. There was a tremendous shaking of the treetops, and a confused

wrestling and jumping and whirling over and about, amid a cloud of

upturned roots and earth and leaves, accompanied with the most terrific

roars and groans. As I looked again, vision grew more distinct.

An immense body, gleaming with purple, green, and gold, appeared

convoluted around the majestic branches overhead, and, stretching down,

was turned two or three times around the struggling lion, whose head

and neck were almost concealed from sight within the cavity of a pair

of jaws still more capacious than his own." A full-grown boa, whose

length is estimated by Mr Romer at about a hundred feet, (much less

than many he subsequently saw, but still "a very respectable-sized

snake,") had dropped a few fathoms of coil from the gigantic tree

around which he was twined, and enveloped the lion, who soon was

crushed to death in the scaly embrace. Jonathan makes no doubt that the

serpent was about to swallow his victim whole, according to the custom

of his kind; and it is certainly to be regretted that the entreaties

of Kaloolah, combined with the "strong sickly odour" diffused by the

boa, prevented his remaining to witness a process of deglutition which,

considering the dimensions of the morsel to be swallowed, could not

have been otherwise than curious.

Wrecked a second time, Romer again reaches the coast of Africa, in

company with an old sailor named Jack Thompson. They fall into the

hands of the Bedouins, and suffer much ill treatment, an account of

which, and of various adventures and escapes, occupy many chapters,

and would have borne a little curtailment. Romer is wandering about

with a tribe, upon whom he has passed himself off as an Arab from a

distant region, when he is compelled to join in an attack on a caravan.

Kaloolah is amongst the prisoners. She has been captured by a party of

slave-hunters, and is on her way to Morocco, where her master hopes

her beauty will fetch a good price from the Emperor Muley Abderrahman.

In the partition of the spoil, she falls to the share of an old Arab,

who is ill satisfied with the acquisition. "He was extremely chagrined

at the turn of fortune which threatened to throw into the wrangling

elements of his domestic felicity a feminine superfluity--or, as he

expressed it, 'another tongue in his tent.'

"'Bismillah!' he exclaimed; 'God is great, but this is a small thing!

She is not a man; she is not a black--she cannot work; but won't she

eat and talk! They all eat and talk. I take a club sometimes, and knock

them down; beat them; break their bones; but they still eat and talk!

God's will be done! but it is too much to put such a thing upon me for

my share! She is good for nothing: I cannot sell her.'"

The grumbling old Bedouin did sell her, however, to Jonathan, for

three or four cotton shirts. Flight now becomes necessary, for Hassan,

son of the chief of the tribe, seeks Jonathan's life, and Mrs Ali,

the chief's wife, persecutes him with her misplaced affection, and is

spiteful to Kaloolah, whom she looks upon as the chief obstacle to its

requital. Upon this head our Yankee is rather good: "Respect for the

sex," he says, "and a sentiment of gentlemanly delicacy, which the

reader will appreciate, prevents me from dwelling upon the story at

length. It was wrong, undoubtedly, in Seffora to love any other than

her old, rugose-faced, white-bearded husband; but it is not for me to

blame her. One thing, however, in her conduct can hardly be excused.

True, I might have treated her affection with more tenderness; I might

have nursed the gentle flowers of passion, instead of turning away

from their fragrance; I might have responded to that 'yearning of the

soul for sympathy'--have relieved, with the food of love, 'the mighty

hunger of the heart;' but all this, and more that I might have done,

but did not do, gave her no right to throw stones at Kaloolah." To

avoid the pelting and other disagreeables, the lovers take themselves

off in the night-time, mounted on _heiries_--camels of a peculiar

breed and excellence, famed in the desert for endurance and speed. On

their road they pick up, in a Moorish village, an Irish renegade; at

some salt-works, they find Jack Thompson working as a slave; and soon

afterwards their party is increased to five persons, by the addition

of Hassan, a runaway negro. With this motley tail, Mr Romer pushes

on in the direction of Framazugda. Here the editor very judiciously

epitomises six long chapters in as many pages; and, immediately after

this compressed portion, there begins what may be strictly termed the

fabulous, or almost the supernatural part of the book. Previously to

this there have been not a few rather startling incidents, but now

the author throws the rein on the neck of his imagination, and scours

away into the realms of the extravagant; still striving, however,

by circumstantial detail, to give an appearance of probability to

his astounding and ingenious inventions. Some of the descriptions of

scenery and savage life in the wilderness are vivid and striking, and

show power which might be better applied. Of the fabulous animals, the

following account of an amiable reptile, peculiar to central Africa,

will serve as a sufficient specimen of Yankee natural history:--

"It is an amphibious polypus. If the reader will conceive a large

cart-wheel, the _hub_ will represent the body of the animal, and

the spokes the long arms, about the size and shape of a full-grown

kangaroo's tail, and twenty in number, that project from it. When

the animal moves upon land, it stiffens these radii, and rolls

over upon the points like a wheel without a felloe. These arms

have also _the capability of a lateral prehensile contraction in

curves, perpendicular to its plane of revolution_, and enable

the animal to grasp its prey, and draw it into its voracious

mouth. It attacks the largest animals, and even man itself;

but, if dangerous upon land, it is still more formidable in the

water, where it has been known to attack and kill an alligator.

This horrible monster is known by the name of the Sempersough

or 'snake-star,' and is more dreaded than any other animal of

Framazugda, inasmuch as the natives have no way of destroying it,

except by catching it when young, in cane traps sunk in the water,

and baited with hippopotamus cubs(!) Fortunately it is not very

prolific; and its increase is further prevented by the furious

contests that these animals have among themselves. Sometimes

twenty or thirty will grasp each other with their long arms,

and twist themselves up into a hard and intricate knot. In this

situation they remain, hugging and gnawing each other to death;

and never relaxing their grasp until their arms are so firmly

intertwined that, when life is extinct, and the huge mass floats,

they cannot be separated. The natives now draw the ball ashore,

cut it up with axes, and make it into a compost for their land."

(!!)

Is Dr Mayo addicted to heavy suppers? We can just fancy an unfortunate

individual, after a midnight meal on a shield of brawn and a

Brobdingnagian crab, which he has omitted to qualify by a subsequent

series of stiff tumblers, sinking into an uneasy slumber, and being

rolled over by such an incubus as this vivacious waggon-wheel.

Doubtless there is a possibility of a man dieting himself into this

style of writing, whereof a short specimen may excite a smile, but

whose frequent recurrence is necessarily wearisome, and which obviously

escapes criticism. But the author of _Kaloolah_ is not contented with

brute monstrosities. He chronicles reports that reach his hero's ears,

of nations of human monsters, with teeth filed to a sharp point (no

uncommon practice amongst certain negro tribes,) with tusks projecting

like those of a wild boar, and with pendant lips that continually

drop blood. All this is childish enough; but Jack Thompson, who is a

dry dog, caps these astounding fictions with a cannibal yarn from the

Southern Hemisphere.

"'I've been among the New Zealanders,' quoth Jack, 'and there

they use each other for fresh grub, as regular as boiled duff in

a man-of-war's mess. They used to eat their fathers and mothers,

when they got too old to take care of themselves; but now they've

got to be more civilised, and so they only eat rickety children,

and slaves, and enemies taken in battle.'

"'A decided instance of the progress of improvement, and march of

mind,' said I.

"'Well, I believe that is what the missionaries call it,' replied

Jack; 'but it's a bad thing for the old folks. They don't take

to the new fashion--they are in favour of the good old custom. I

never see'd the thing myself; but Bill Brown, a messmate of mine

once, told me that, when he was at the Bay of Islands, he see'd a

great many poor old souls going about with tears in their eyes,

trying to get somebody to eat them. One of them came off to the

ship, and told them that he couldn't find rest in the stomachs of

any of his kindred, and wanted to know if the crew wouldn't take

him in. The skipper told him he was on monstrous short allowance,

but he couldn't accommodate him. The poor old fellow, Bill

said, looked as though his heart would break. There were plenty

of sharks round the ship, and the skipper advised him to jump

overboard; but he couldn't bear the idea of being eaten raw.'"

The great audacity of Dr Mayo's fictions preclude surprise at the

boldness of his tropes and similes. The tails of his lions lash the

ground "with a sound like the falling of clods upon a coffin;" their

roar is like the boom of a thirty-two pounder, shaking the trees, and

rattling the boulders in the bed of the river. Of course, allowance

must be made for the vein of humorous rhodomontade peculiar to certain

American writers, and into which Dr Mayo sometimes unconsciously

glides, and, at others, voluntarily indulges. His description of the

conjuring tricks of the Framazugdan jugglers comes under the latter

head.

"Some of them were truly wonderful, as, for instance, turning a

man into a tree bearing fruit, and with monkeys skipping about in

the branches; and another case, where the chief juggler apparently

swallowed five men, ten boys, and a jackass, threw them all up

again, turned himself inside out, blew himself up like a balloon,

and, exploding with a loud report, disappeared in a puff of

luminous vapour. I could not but admire the skill with which the

tricks were performed, although I was too much of a Yankee to be

much astonished at anything in the _Hey, Presto!_ line."

A countryman of Mr Jefferson Davis is not expected to feel surprise at

anything in the way of sleight of hand, or "double shuffle;" and there

was probably nothing more startling to the senses in the evaporation

of King Shounsé's conjuror, than in the natural self-extinction of the

Mississippian debt. It is only a pity that Jonathan Romer did not carry

his smart fellow-citizen to the country of the _Pholdefoos_, a class

of enthusiasts who devote their lives to a search for the germs of

moral, religious, and political truth. Mr Davis would have felt rather

out of his element at first, but could not have failed ultimately to

have benefited by his sojourn amongst these singular savages.

On coming in sight of her father's capital, Kaloolah is overcome

with emotion, and sinks weeping into her brother's arms. "I felt,"

says Jonathan, "that this was a situation in which even the most

sympathising lover would be _de trop_. There were thronging

associations which I could not share, vibrating memories to which my

voice was not attuned, bonds of affection which all-powerful love might

transcend, and even disrupt, but whose precise nature it could not

assume. There are some lovers who are jealous of such things--fellows

who like to wholly monopolise a woman, and who are constantly on the

watch, seizing and appropriating her every look, thought, and feeling,

with somewhat of the same notion of an exclusive right, as that with

which they pocket a tooth-pick. I am not of that turn. The female heart

is as curiously and as variously stocked as a country dry-goods store.

A man may be perhaps allowed to select out, for his own exclusive use,

some of the heavier articles, such as sheetings, shirtings, flannels,

trace-chains, hobby-horses, and goose-yokes; but that is no reason why

the neighbours should be at once cut off from their accustomed supply

of small-wares."

We venture to calculate that it takes a full-blooded Yankee to write

in this strain, which, reminds us, remotely, it is true, of some of Mr

Samuel Slick's eccentric fancies. Dr Mayo has considerable versatility

of pen; he dashes at everything, from the ultra-grotesque to the

hyper-sentimental, from the wildest fable to the most substantial

matter-of-fact; and if not particularly successful in some styles, in

others he really makes what schoolboys call "a very good offer." But

the taste of the day is by no means for extravaganza travels, after the

fashion of Gulliver, but without the brilliant and searching satire

that lurks in Lilliput and Laputa. Mr Herman Melville might have known

that much; although we have heard say that certain keen critics have

caught glimpses in his _Mardi_ of a hidden meaning--one, however, which

the most penetrating have hitherto been unable to unravel. We advise

Dr Mayo to start afresh, with a better scheme. Instead of torturing

his inventive faculties to produce rotatory dragons, wingless birds,

(propelled through the air by valves in their heads,) and countries

where courtiers, like Auriol in the ring at Franconi's, do public

homage by standing on their hands; let him seek his inspiration in real

life, as it exists in the wilder regions of the vast continent of which

he is a native. A man who has strayed so far, and seen so much, can

hardly be at a loss. The slaver's surgeon, the inmate of the Bedouin's

tent, the bold explorer of the deadly swamps of Congo, had surely

rambled nearer home before a restless fancy lured him to such distant

and dangerous latitudes. Or are we too bold in assuming that the wilds

and forests of Western America have echoed to the crack of his rifle,

and that the West Indian seas have borne the furrow of his vessel's

prow? It is in such scenes we would gladly find him, when next he risks

himself in print: beneath the shade of the live oak or on the rolling

prairie, or where the black flag, with the skeleton emblem, floats from

the masthead. He has worked out his crotchet of an imaginary white

nation in the heart of Africa, carrying it through with laborious

minuteness, and with results hardly equal to the pains bestowed: let

him now turn from the ideal to the real, and may our next meeting be

on the Spanish main under rover's bunting, or west of the clearings,

where the bison roams and the Redskin prowls, and the stragglers from

civilisation have but begun to show themselves.

THE GREEN HAND.[7]

A "SHORT" YARN.--PART III.

The evening after that in which the commander of the Gloucester

Indiaman introduced his adventures, nearly the same party met on the

poop to hear them continued.

"Well then," began Captain Collins, leaning back against a stanchion of

the quarter-rail, with folded arms, legs crossed, and his eyes fixed on

the weather-leech of the mizen-topsail to collect his thoughts;--"well

then, try to fancy the Seringapatam in chase of the Gloucester; and if

I _do_ use a few extra sea-terms, I consider the ladies good enough

sailors for them already. At any rate, just throw a glance aloft now

and then, and our good old lady will explain herself; to her own sex,

she's as good as a dictionary without words!"

[7] See No. CCCCI., March 1849.

The second day out we had the wind more from seaward, which broke up

the haze into bales of cloud, and away they went rolling in for the

Bay of Biscay; with a longer wave and darker water, and the big old

Indiaman surged over it as easily as might be, the blue breeze gushing

right into her main-tack through the heave of the following seas, and

the tail of the trade-wind flying high above her trucks in shreds and

patches. Things got more ship-shape on deck; anchor-flukes brought

inboard on the head-rail, and cables stowed away--the very best sign

you can have of being clear of the land. The first officer, as they

called him, was a good-looking fellow, that thought no small-beer of

himself, with his glossy blue jacket and Company's buttons, white

trowsers, and a gold thread round his cap: he had it stuck askew to

show how his hair was brushed, and changed his boots every time he came

on deck. Still he looked like a sailor, if but for the East India brown

on his face, and there was no mistake about his knowing how to set a

sail, trim yards, or put the ship about; so that the stiff old skipper

left a great deal to him, besides trusting in him for a first-rate

navigator that had learned headwork at a naval school. The crew were to

be seen all mustering before tea-time in the dog-watch, with their feet

just seen under the foot mat of the fore-course, like actors behind a

playhouse curtain: men that I warrant you had seen every country under

heaven amongst them, as private as possible, and ready to enjoy their

pots of tea upon the forecastle, as well as their talk.

The old judge evidently fought shy of company, and perhaps meant to

have his own mess-table under the poop as long as the voyage lasted:

scarcely any of the ladies had apparently got their sea-qualms over

yet, and, for all I knew, _she_ might not be on board at all; or, if

she were, her father seemed quite Turk enough to keep her boxed up

with jalousie-blinds, Calcutta fashion, and give her a walk in the

middle watch, with the poop tabooed till morning! The jolly, red-faced

indigo-planter was the only one that tried to get up anything like

spirit at the table; indeed, he would have scraped acquaintance with

me if I had been in a mood for it: all I did was to say 'Yes' and

'No,' and to take wine with him. "Poor fellow!" said he, turning to

three or four of the cadets, that stuck by him like pilot-fish to

an old shark, "he's thinking of his mother at home, I daresay." The

fools thought this was meant as a joke, and began to laugh. "Why, you

unfledged griffins you," said the planter, "what d'ye see to nicker

at, like so many jackals in a trap? D'ye suppose one thinks the less

of a man for having a heart to be sick in, as well as a stomach--eh?"

"Oh, don't speak of it, Mr Rollock!" said one. "Come, come, old boy!"

said another, with a white mustache on his lip, "'twon't do for you

to go the sentimental, you know!" "Capsize my main-spanker, 'tis too

funny, though!" put in a fellow who wore a glazed hat on deck, and

put down all the ropes with numbers on paper, as soon as he had done

being sick. The planter leant back in his chair, looked at them coolly,

and burst out a-laughing. "Catch me ever 'going home' again!" said

he. "Of all the absurd occasions for impudence with the egg-shell

on its head coming out, hang me if these fifteen thousand miles of

infernal sea-water ain't the worst! India for ever!--that's the place

to _try_ a man! He's either sobered or gets room to work there; and

just wait, my fine fellows, till I see _you_ on the Custom-house

_Bunda_ at Bombay, or setting off up country--you're all of you the

very food for _sircars_ and _coolies_! That quiet lad there, now, soft

as he looks,--I can tell by his eye he won't be long a griff--He'll

do something! I tell you what, as soon as he's tasted a mango-fish,

he'll _understand_ the country! Why, sir!" said he again, smacking his

lips, "'tis worth the voyage of itself--you begin a new existence, so

to speak! I'll be bound all this lot o' water don't contain one single

mango-fish! Remember, boys, I promised you all a regular blow-out of

mango-fish, and _florican_ with bread sauce, whenever you can get

across to Chuckbully Factory!" "Blow good breeze, then; blow away

the main jib!" said the nautical young gentleman; "I'll join you,

old fellow!" "Not the best way to bring it about, though!" said the

indigo-planter, good-naturedly, not knowing but there _was_ such a sail

on the ship.

The yellow setting sun was striking over the starboard quarter-boat,

and the Bay of Biscay lay broad down to leeward for a view--a couple of

large craft, with all studding-sails set before the wind, making for

land, far enough off to bring their canvass in a piece, and begin to

look blue with the air--one like a milkwoman with pitchers and a hoop;

the other like a girl carrying a big bucketful of water, and leaning

the opposite way to steady herself. There was one far to north-east,

too, no more than a white speck in the gray sky; and the land-cloud

went up over it into so many sea-lions' heads, all looking out of their

manes. The children clapped their hands and laughed; and the ladies

talked about the vessels, and thought they saw land--Spain or the

Pyrenees, perhaps. However, it wasn't long before my American friend

Snout caught sight of me in the midst of his meditations, as he turned

bolt round on his toes to hurry aft again. "The fact is, mister," said

he, "_I'm_ riled a little at _the_ 'tarnation pride of you Britishers.

There now," said he, pointing at the blaze of the sun to westward, with

his chin, "there's _a_ consolation! I calculate the sun's just over

Noo-York, which I expect to give you old country folks considerable

pain!"

"No doubt!" said I, with a sigh, "one can't help thinking of a banker

run off with ever so much English gold!" "You're a sensible chap, you

are. It's _a_ right-down asylum _for_ oppressed Eur_o_pains, that

can't be denied." "And Africans too," I put in. "Indy, now," said he,

"I reckon there's a sight of dollars made in that country--you don't

s'pose I'm goin' out there for nothing? We'll just take it out o' your

hands yet, mister. I don't ought to let you into the scheme till I know

you better, you see; but I expect to want a sort o' company got up

before we land. There's one of your nabobs, now, came into the ship at

Possmouth with a whole tail of niggers-dressed-up ----." "And a lady

with him, I think?" said I, as coolly as I could.--"I'll somehow open

on that chap about British tyranny, I guess, after gettin' a little

knowledge out of him. We'd just _rise_ the niggurs, if they had _not_

such a right-down cur'ous _my_-thullogy--but I tell you now, mister,

that's one of the very p'ints I expect to meet. Miss'naries won't

do it so slick off in two thousand years, I kinder think, as this

indentical specoolation will in _ten_,--besides payin' like Peruvain

mines, which the miss'nary line don't. I'm a regoolar Down-easter, ye

see--kinder piercin' into a subject, like our nation in gin'ral--and

the whull schim hangs together a little, I calculate, mister?" "So I

should think, Mr Snout, indeed," I said. Here the American gave another

chuckle, and turned to again on his walk, double quick, till you'd

have thought the whole length of the poop shook: when who should I see

with the tail of my eye, but my friend the _Kitmagar_ salaaming to

Mr Snout, by the break of the quarterdeck. The Yankee seemed rather

taken aback at first, and didn't know what to make of him. "S'laam,

sah'b," said the dark servant, with an impudent look, and loud enough

for me to hear, as I stepped from aft,--"Judge sahib i-send genteeman

salaam--say too much hivvy boot he got--all same as _Illimphant_!

S'pose master not so much loud walk, _this_ side?" "_Well!_" broke out

the American, looking at the Bengalee's flat turban and mustache, as if

he were too great a curiosity to be angry with, then, turning on his

heel to proceed with his walk, "Now, mister," said he to me, "that's

what I call an incalculable imp_u_dent black--but he's the first I

ever saw with hair on his lip, it's a fact!" "Master not _mind_?" said

the Kitmagar, raising his key next time Mr Snout wheeled round. "Judge

sahib burra burra buhadoorkea!--ver' great man!" "D---- niggur!" said

Mr Snout, tramping away aft; "there's your British regoolations, I say,

young man! niggurs bààing on the quarterdeck, and free-born citizens

put off it!" "_Bhote khoob_, mistree!" squeaked out the native again;

"burra judge sahib not i-sleep apter he dine?--ver_i_ well--I tell the

sahib, passiger mistree moor stamp-i-stamp all the moor I can say!"

So off he went to report in the poop-cabin. A little after, up shot a

head wrapped in a yellow bandanna, just on the level of the poop-deck,

looking through the breast-rail; and the next thing I saw was the

great East Indian himself, with a broad-flapped Manilla hat over

this top-gear, and a red-flowered dressing-gown, standing beside the

binnacle with Captain Williamson. "What the deuce, Captain Williamson!"

said the judge, with an angry glance up to the poop, "cannot I close

my eyelids after dinner for one instant--in my own private apartments,

sir--for this hideous noise! Who the deuce _is_ that person there--eh,

eh?" "He's an American gentleman, I believe, Sir Charles," replied

the captain. "_Believe_, sir!" said the judge, "you ought to _know_

every individual, I think, Captain Williamson, whom you admitted into

this vessel! I expressly stipulated for quiet, sir--I understood that

no suspicious or exceptionable persons should travel in the same

conveyance with _my_ suwarry. I'd have taken the whole ship, sir!"

"I've no more to do than tell him the regulations aboard, Sir Charles,"

said the captain, "and the annoyance will cease." "_Tell_ him, indeed!"

said the judge, a little more good-humouredly, "why, captain, the man

looks like a sea-pirate! You should have taken only such raw griffins

as that young lad on the other side. Ho, kitmagar!" "Maharaj?" said the

footman, bowing down to the deck. "_Slippers lao!_" "Jee, khodabund,"

answered the native, and immediately after he reappeared from the

round-house door, with a pair of turned-up yellow slippers. "Take

them up with my salaam to that gentleman there," said Sir Charles, in

Hindostance, "and ask him to use them." "Hullo!," sung out Mr Snout,

on being hove-to by the kitmagar, with one hand on his breast and the

other holding the slippers, "this won't do! You'd better not _rile_ me

again, you cussed niggur you--out o' my way!" There they went at it

along the poop together, Mr Snout striding right forward with his long

legs, and the kitmagar hopping backward out of his way, as he tried to

make himself understood; till, all at once, the poor fellow lost his

balance at the ladder-head, and over he went with a smash fit to have

broken his neck, if the captain's broad back hadn't fortunately been

there to receive it. The rage of Sir Charles at this was quite beyond

joking; nothing else would satisfy him but the unlucky Yankee's being

shoved off the poop by main force, and taken below--the one stamping

and roaring like an old buffalo, and the other testifying against all

"aristocratycal _ty_ranny."

At eight bells, again, I found it a fine breezy night, the two upper

mates walking the weather quarterdeck in blue-water style, six steps

and a look to windward, then a wheel round, and, now and then, a glance

into the binnacle. I went aft and leant over the Seringapatam's lee

quarter, looking at the white backwash running aft from her bows, in

green sparks, into the smooth alongside, and the surge coming round

her counter to meet it. Everything was set aloft that could draw, even

to a starboard main-topmast-stunsail; the high Indiaman being lighter

than if homeward-bound, and the breeze strong abeam, she had a good

heel-over to port: but she went easily through the water, and it was

only at the other side you heard it rattling both ways along the bends.

The shadow of her went far to leeward, except where a gleam came on

the top of a wave or two between the sails and under their foot. Just

below the sheer of the hull aft it was as dark as night, though now

and then the light from a port struck on it and went in again; but

every time she sank, the bight of her wake from astern swelled up away

round the counter, with its black side as smooth as a looking-glass. I

kept peering into it, and expecting to see my own face, while all the

time I was very naturally thinking of one quite different, and felt

uneasy till I should actually see her. "Confound it!" I thought, "were

it only a house, one might walk round and round it till he found out

the window!" I fancied her bewitching face through the garden door,

as clearly as if I saw it in the dark head of the swell; but I'd have

given more only to hear that imp of a cockatoo scream once--whereas

there was nothing but the water working up into the rudder-case; the

pintles creaking, and the tiller-ropes cheeping as they traversed;

and the long welter of the sea when the ship eased down, with the

surgeon and his friends walking about and laughing up to windward.

From that, again, I ran on putting things together, till, in fact,

Jacobs's notion of a shipwreck seemed by far the best. No doubt Jacobs

and Westwood, with a few others, would be saved, while I didn't even

object much to the old nabob himself, for respectability's sake, and to

spare crape. But, by Jove, wouldn't one bring him to his bearings soon

enough there! Every sailor gets hold of this notion some night-watch

or other, leaning over the side, with pretty creatures aboard he can

scarce speak to otherwise; and I was coiling it down so fast myself,

at the moment, that I had just begun to pitch into the nabob about our

all being Adam's sons and daughters, under a knot of green palm-trees,

at the door of a wooden house, half thatched with leaves, when I was

brought up with a round turn by seeing a light shining through the

hazy bull's-eye in the deck where I stood. No doubt the sweet girl I

had been thinking of was actually there, and going to bed! I stretched

over the quarter, but the heavy mouldings were in the way of seeing

more than the green bars of the after window--all turned edgeways to

the water, where the gallery hung out like a corner turret from the

ship's side. Now and then, however, when she careened a little more

than ordinary, and the smooth lee swell went heaping up opposite, I

could notice the light through the venetians from the state-room come

out upon the dark water in broad bright lines, like the grate across

a fire, then disappearing in a ripple, till it was gone again, or

somebody's shadow moved inside. It was the only lighted window in the

gallery, and I looked every time it came as if I could see in; when

at last, you may fancy my satisfaction, as, all of a sudden, one long

slow heave-over of the ship showed me the whole bright opening of

the port, squared out of her shadow, where it shone upon the glassy

round of the swell. 'Twas as plain as from a mirror in a closet,--the

lighted gallery window with its frame swung in, a bit of the deck-roof

I was standing on, and two female figures at the window--mere dark

shapes against the lamp. I almost started back at the notion of their

seeing me, but away lengthened the light on the breast of the swell,

and it sank slowly down into a black hollow, as the Indiaman eased up

to windward. Minute by minute, quite breathless, did I watch for such

another chance; but next time she leant over as much, the port had

been closed, and all was dark; although those few moments were enough

to send the heart into my mouth with sheer delight. The figure I had

seen holding with one hand by the portsill, and apparently keeping up

her dress with the other, as if she were looking down steadily on the

heave of the sea below--it couldn't be mistaken. The line of her head,

neck, and shoulders, came out more certain than if they hadn't been

filled up with nothing but a black shadow; it was just Lota Hyde's, as

she sat in the ball-room amongst the crowd, I'd have bet the Victory to

a bumboat on it: only her hair hung loose on one side, while the girl

behind seemed to be dressing the other, for it was turned back, so that

I saw clear past her cheek and neck to where the lamp was, and her ear

gleamed to the light. For one moment nothing could be plainer, than the

glimpse old Davy Jones gave me by one of his tricks; but the old fellow

was quite as decorous in his way as a chamberblind, and swallowed his

pretty little bit of blab as quickly as if it had been a mermaid caught

at her morning toilet. Whenever I found there was to be no more of it

for the night, the best thing to calm one's feelings was to light a

cigar and walk out the watch; but I took care it should rather be over

the nabob's head than his daughter's, and went up to the weather side,

where there was nobody else by this time, wishing her the sweetest of

dreams, and not doubting I should see her next day.

I daresay I should have walked out the first watch, and the second too,

if Westwood hadn't come up beside me before he turned in.

"Why, you look like the officer of the watch, Ned!" said my friend,

after taking a glance, round at the night. "Yes--what?--a--a--I don't

think so," stammered I, not knowing what he said, or at least the

meaning of it, though certainly it was not so deep. "I hope not though,

Tom!" said I again, "'tis the very thing I don't want to look like!"

"You seem bent on keeping it up, and coming the innocent, at any

rate," said he; "I really didn't know you the first time I saw you in

the cuddy." "Why, man, you never saw our theatricals in the dear old

Iris, on the African station! I was our best female actor of tragedy

there, and _did_ Desdemona so well that the black cook who stood for

Othello, actually cried. He said, 'Nobody but 'ee dibble umself go

forsmudder missee Dasdemoner!'" "I daresay," said Westwood; "but what

is the need for it _now_, even if _you_ could serve as a blind for me?"

"My dear fellow!" said I, "not at all--you've kept it up very well so

far--just go on." "Keep it up, Ned?" inquired he, "what do you mean?

I've done nothing except keep quiet, from mere want of spirits." "So

much the better," I said; "I never saw a man look more like a prophet

in the wilderness; it doesn't cost you the least trouble--why you'd

have done for Hamlet in the Iris, if for nothing else! After all,

though, a missionary don't wear blue pilot-cloth trousers, nor tie his

neckerchief as you do, Tom. You must bend a white neckcloth to-morrow

morning! I'm quite serious, Westwood, I assure you," continued I.

"Just think of the suspicious look of two navy men being aboard an

_Indiaman_, nobody knows how! Why, the first frigate we speak, or port

we touch at, they'd hand one or both of us over at once--which I, for

my part, shouldn't at all like!" "Indeed, Collins," said Tom, turning

round, "I really cannot understand _why_ you went out in her! It

distresses me to think that here you've got yourself into this scrape

on my account! At least you'll put back in the first home-bound ship

we----"

"Oh!" exclaimed I, blushing a little in the dark though, both at

Westwood's simplicity and my not wishing to tell him my secret

yet--"I'm tired of shore--I _want_ to see India again--I'm thinking of

going into the _army_, curse it!" "The _army_, indeed!" said Westwood,

laughing for the first time, "and you midshipman all over. No--no--that

won't do! I see your drift, you can't deceive _me_! You're a true

friend, Ned,--to stand by an old schoolmate so!" "No, Tom!" said I;

"'tis yourself has too kind a heart, and more of a sailor's, all fair

and above-board, than I can manage! I _won't_ humbug _you_, at any

rate--I tell you I've got a scheme of my own, and you'll know more of

it soon." Tom whistled; however I went on to tell him, "The long and

the short of it is, Westwood, you'll bring both of us by the head if

you don't keep up the missionary." "Missionary!" repeated he; "you

don't mean to say you and Neville intended all that long toggery you

supplied my kit with, for me to sail under _missionary_ colours? I

tell you what, Ned, it's not a character I like to cut jokes upon,

much less to sham!" "Jokes!" said I; "there's no joking about it; 'tis

serious enough." "Why," said Westwood, "_now_ I know the reason of a

person like a clergyman sighting me through his spectacles for half an

hour together, these two evenings below! This very afternoon he called

me his brother, and began asking me all manner of questions which I

could no more answer than the cook's mate." "Clergyman be hanged!"

said I, "you must steer clear of him, Tom--take care you don't bowse

up your jib too much within hail of him! Mind, I gave your name, both

to the head-steward and the skipper, as the Reverend Mr Thomas, going

back to Bombay." "The devil you did!" "Why there was nothing else for

it, Westwood," I said, "when you were beyond thinking for yourself. All

you've got to do with that solemn chap in the spectacles, is just to

look as wise as possible, and let him know you belong to the _Church_.

And as for shamming, you needn't sham a bit--_taketoit_ my dear

fellow, if that will do you good!" I said this in joke, but Westwood

seemed to ponder on it for a minute or two. "Indeed, Collins," said he

gravely, "I _do_ think you're right. What do we sailors do, but give

up everything in life for a mere schoolboy notion, and keep turning

up salt water for years together like the old monks did the ground;

only they grew corn and apples for their pains, and we have nothing

but ever so many dull watches and wild cruises ashore to remember!

How many sailors have turned preachers and missionaries, just because

something, by accident as it were, taught them to put to account what

you can't help feeling now and then in the very _look_ of the sea? What

does it mean in the Scriptures, Ned, about 'seeing the wonders of the

Lord in the deep?'" As Westwood said this, both of us stopped on the

taffrail, and, somehow or other, a touch of I didn't well know _what_

went through me. I held my breath, with his hand on my arm, just at the

sight I had seen a thousand times--the white wake running broad away

astern, with a mark in the middle as if it had been torn, on to the

green yeast of the waves, then right to their black crests plunging in

the dark. It was midnight ahead, and the clouds risen aloft over where

I had been looking half all hour before; but the long ragged split

to westward was opened up, and a clear glaring glance of the sky, as

pale as death, shot through it on the horizon. "I can't be sorry for

having gone to sea," said Westwood again; "but isn't it a better thing

to leave home and friends, as those men do, for the sake of carrying

the gospel to the heathen?" As soon as we wheeled round, with the ship

before us, leaning over and mounting to the heave, and her spread of

canvass looming out on the dark, my thoughts righted. "Well," said I,

"it may be all very well for some--every one to his rope; but, for my

part, I think if a man hadn't been made for the sea, he couldn't have

built a ship, and where would your missionaries be _then_? You're older

than I am, Westwood, or I'd say you let some of your notions run away

with you, like a Yankee ship with her short-handed crew!" "Oh, Ned,"

said he, "of all places in the world for one's actions coming back on

him the sea is the worst, especially when you're an idler, and have

nothing to do but count the sails, or listen to the passengers' feet

on deck. These two days, now, I've thought more than I ever did in my

life. I can't get that man's death out of my head; every time, the sea

flashes round me as I come from below, I think of him--it seems to me

he is lying yet by the side of the Channel. I can't help having the

notion he perhaps _fired in the air_!" "'Twas a base lie!" said I; "If

_he_ weren't _there_, you wouldn't be here, I call tell you, Westwood."

"I don't know how I shall ever drag through this voyage," continued he.

"If there were a French gunboat to cut out to-morrow morning, or if we

were only to have a calm some day in sight of a Spanish slaver,--'tis

nothing but a jogging old Indiaman though! I shall never more see the

flag over my head with pride--every prospect I had was in the service!"

Next morning was fine, and promised to be hot; the ship still with a

sidewind from near south-west, which 'twas easy to see had slackened

since midnight with a pour of rain, the sails being all wet, and coats

hung to dry in the fore-rigging; she was going little more than five or

six knots headway. The water was bluer, lifting in long waves, scarce

a speck of foam except about the ship; but instead of having broke

up with the sun, or sunk below the level, the long white clouds were

risen high to leeward, wandering away at the top and facing us steady

below out of the sky, a pretty sure sign they had more to do. However,

the Indiaman was all alive from stem to stern: decks drying as clean

as a table; hens and ducks clucking in the coops at their food; pigs

grunting; stewards and cabin-boys going fore and aft, below and above,

and the men from aloft coming slowly down for breakfast, with an eye

into the galley funnel. Most of the passengers were upon deck, in knots

all along the poop-nettings, to look out for Corvo and Flores, the

westernmost of the Azores, which we had passed before daybreak.

"I say, Fawd!" said the warlike cadet with the mustache, all of a

sudden yawning and stretching himself, as if he'd been struck with the

thing himself, "Cussed dull this vessel already, ain't it?" "Blast me,

no, you fellow!" said Ford, the nautical man--"that's because you're

not interested in the ocean--the sea--as I am! You should study the

_craft_, Bob, my boy! I'll teach you to go aloft. I only wish it would

blow harder--not a mere capful of wind, you know, but a tempest!" "By

Jove! Fawd," said the other, "_how_ we _shall_ enjoy India--even that

breakfast with old Rollock! By the bye, ain't breakfast ready yet?"

These two fellows, for my part, I took for a joint-model, just trying

to hit a mid-helm betwixt them, else I couldn't have got through it:

accordingly they both patronised me. "Haw, Cawlins!" said one, nodding

to me. "Is that you, my boy?" said the other; "now you're a fellow

_never_ would make a sailor!" "I daresay not," I said, gravely, "if

they have all to commence as horse-marines." "Now, such ignorance!"

said Ford; "marines don't ride horses, Collins, you fellow!--how d'you

think they could be _fed_ at sea--eh?" "Well--now--that didn't occur

to me!" said I, in the cadet key. "Fawd, my boy, you--demmee--you

know too much--you're quite a sea-cook!" "Oh, now! But I'm afraid,

Winterton, I never shall land ashore in India--I _am_ tempted to

go into the navy instead." "I say, Mr Ford," put in a fat unlicked

cub of a tea-middy, grinning as he listened, "I've put you up to a

few _rises_ aboard, but I don't think I told you we've got a dozen

or so of _donkeys_[8] below in the steerage?" "Donkeys!--no?" said

the griffin. "Yes," replied the midshipman; "they kick like blazes,

though, if they get loose in a gale--why mine, now, would knock a hole

through the side in no time--I'll show you them for a glass of grog,

Mr Ford." "Done!" and away they went. "That fool, Fawd, you know,

Cawlins, makes one sick with his stuff; I declare he chews little

bits of tobacco in our room till he vomits as much as before," said

Winterton. "I tell you what, Cawlins, you're a sensible man--I'll let

you into a secret! What do you think--there's the deucedest pretty girl

in the vessel, we've none of us seen except myself; I caught a sight

of her this very mawning. She don't visit the cuddy at all; papa's

proud, you pusseeve--a nabob in short!" "Oh, dear!" said I. "Yes, I

do assure you, quite a bew-ty! What's to be done?--we absolutely must

meet her--eh, Cawlins?" Here I mused a bit. "Oh!" said I, looking up

again, "shall we send a deputation, do you think?" "Or get up a ball,

Cawlins?--Hallo, what's this?" said he, leaning over the breast-rail

to look at a stout lady who was lugging a chubby little boy of three

or four, half-dressed, up the poop-stair, while her careful husband

and a couple of daughters blocked it up above. "See, Tommy, dear!"

said she, "look at the _land_--the nice, land, you know, Tommy." "Come

away, my love," said her spouse, "else you won't see it." Tommy,

however, hung back manfully. "Tommy don't want wook at _yand_," sang

out he, kicking the deck; "it all such 'mell of a sheep, ma; me wook

at 'at man wis _gate feel_. Fare other _feel_, man? Oh, fat a ugwy

man!" The honest tar at the wheel pulled up his shirt, and looked

terribly cut at this plain remark on his phiz, which certainly wasn't

the most beautiful; meanwhile he had the leech of the main to'gallant

sail shaking. "Mind your helm, there," sung out the second mate from

the capstan. "My good man," said the lady, "will you be so kind as to

show us the land?" "Ay, ay, sir," growled he, putting up his weather

spokes; "sorry I carn't, ma'am--please not to speak to the man at the

wheel." Jacobs was coiling down the ropes on a carronade close by, and

stepped forward: "Beg your ladyship's pardon," said he, "but if ye'll

give me charge o' the youngster till you goes on the poop--why, I've

got a babby at home myself." The stout lady handed him over, and Jacobs

managed the little chap wonderfully. This was the first time Tommy had

been on deck since leaving home, and he couldn't see over the high

bulwarks, so he fancied it was a house he was in. "Oh, suts big _tees,

man_!" shouted he, clapping his hands as soon as he noticed the sails

and rigging aloft; "suts warge birds in a _tees_!" "Ay, ay, my little

man," answered Jacobs, "that's the wonderfowl _tree_! Did ye ever

hear Jack and the Bean-stalk, Tommy?" "Oh, 'ess, to be soo, _man_!"

said Tommy, scornfully, as if he should think he had. "Well, little

un," said Jacobs, "that's it, ye see. It grows up every night afore

Jack's door--and them's Jack an' his brothers a-comin' down out on

the wonderfowl country aloft, with fruits in their hands." The little

fellow was delighted, and for going aloft at once. "Ye must wait a bit,

Tommy, my lad, till you're bigger," said Jacobs; "here I'll show you

the country, though;" so he lifted the boy up to let him see the bright

blue sea lying high away round the sky. In place of crying, as he would

have done otherwise, Tommy stared with pleasure, and finished by vowing

to get as soon big as possible, Jacobs advising him to eat always as

hard as he had been doing hitherto.

[8] Sea slang for sailors' chests.

This morning the breakfast party was in high spirits: Mr Finch, the

chief officer, rigged up to the nines in white trowsers and Company's

jacket, laying himself out to please the young ladies, with whom he

began to be a regular hero. He was as blustering as a young lion, and

as salt-tongued as a Channel pilot to the men; but with the ladies, on

the poop or in the cabin, he was always twisting his sea-talk into fine

language, like what you see in books, as if the real thing weren't good

enough. He rubbed his hands at hearing the mate on deck singing out

over the skylight to trim yards, and gave a look along to the captain.

"You must understand, ladies," said the mate, "this is what we mariners

call the 'ladies' wind!'" "Oh delightful!" "Oh _so_ nice!" "You sailors

_are_ so polite!" exclaimed the young ladies--"then does it actually

_belong_ to us?" "Why it's a _Trade_ wind, Miss Fortescue!" said Ford

the nautical cadet, venturing to put in a word; but the ladies paid

no attention to him, and the chief mate gave him a look of contempt.

"You see, ladies, the reason is," said the mate, in a flourishing way,

"because it's so regular, and as gentle as--as--why it wafts your bark

into the region of, you see,--the--" "The 'Doldrums,'" put in the

third mate, who was a brinier individual by far, and a true seaman,

but wished to pay his compliments too, between his mouthfuls. "At any

rate," Finch went on, "it's congenial, I may say, to the feelings of

the fair--you need never touch her braces from one day to another. I

just wish, Miss Fortescue, you'd allow me the felicity of letting you

see how to put the ship about!" "A _soldier_ might put her in stays,

miss," said the third mate again, encouragingly, "and out of 'em again;

she's a remarkable easy craft, owing to her----" "Confound it! Mr

Rickett," said the first mate, turning round to his unlucky inferior,

"you're a sight too coarse for talking to ladies. Well the captain

didn't hear you!" Rickett looked dumbfoundered, not knowing what was

wrong; the old ladies frowned; the young ones either blushed or put

their handkerchiefs to their mouths, and some took the occasion for

walking off.

The weather began to have a different turn already by the time we got

up--the clouds banking to leeward, the sea dusky under them, and the

air-line between rather bluish. Two or three lazy gulls in our wake

began to look alive, and show themselves, and a whole black shoal of

porpoises went tumbling and rolling across the bows for half an hour,

till down they dived of a sudden, head-foremost, one after another in

the same spot, like so many sheep through a gap.

My gentleman-mate was to be seen everywhere about the decks, and active

enough, I must say: the next minute he was amongst two or three young

ladies aft, as polite as a dancing-master, showing them everything

in board and out, as if nobody knew it except himself. Here a young

girl, one of Master Tommy's sisters, came skipping aft, half in a

fright. "Oh, Miss Fortescue!" cried she, "just think!--I peeped over

into a nasty black hole there, with a ladder in it, and saw ever so

many common sailors hung up in bags from the ceiling. Oh, what do you

think, one of them actually kissed his hand to me!" "Only one of the

watch below awake, Miss," said the mate; "impertinent swab!--I only

wish I knew which it was." "Poor fellows!" said the young ladies;

"pray, don't be harsh to them--but what have they been doing?" "Oh,

nothing," said he, with a laugh, "but swing in their hammocks since

eight bells." "Then are they so lazy as to dislike getting up to such

delightful-looking occupations?" "Why, ma'am," said the mate, staring

a little, "they've been on deck last night two watches, of four hours

each, I must say that for them." "Dear me!" broke out the ladies; and

on this the chief officer took occasion to launch out again concerning

"the weary vigils," as he called them, "which we mariners have to keep,

far distant from land, without a smile from the eyes of the fair to

bless us! But, however, the very thought of it gives courage to the

sailor's manly heart, to disregard the billows' fearful rage, and reef

topsails in the tempest's angry height!" Thought I, "he'd much better

do it before." However, the young ladies didn't seem to see that,

evidently looking upon the mate as the very pink of seamen; and he

actually set a second lower stud-sail, to show them how fast she could

walk.

"D'ye know, sir," put in the third mate, coming from forward, "I'm

in doubt it's going to be rather a sneezer, sir, if ye look round

the larboard stuns'ls." Sure enough, if our fine gentleman had had

time, amidst his politeness, just to cast an eye beyond his spread

of cloth, he would have noticed the clouds gathered all in a lump to

north-eastward, one shooting into another--the breast of them lowering

down to the horizon, and getting the same colour as the waves, till

it bulked out bodily in the middle. You'd have fancied the belly of

it scarce half a mile off from the white yard-arms, and the hollow of

it twenty--coming as stealthily as a ghost, that walks without feet

after you, its face to yours, and the skirt of its winding-sheet in

"kingdom come" all the while. I went up on the poop, and away behind

the spanker I could see the sun gleam for one minute right on the eye

of stray cloud risen to nor'-west, with two short streaks of red,

purple, and yellow together--what is called a "wind-gall;" then it was

gone. The American was talking away with jovial old Rollock and Ford,

who began to look wise, and think there was mischief brewing in the

weather. "Mind your helm there, sirrah!" sung out the mate, walking

aft to the wheel, as everything aloft fluttered. "She won't lie her

course, sir!" said the man. "All aback for'ud!" hailed the men at work

on the bowsprit; and hard at it went all hands, trimming yards over

and over again; the wind freshening fast, stunsails flapping, booms

bending, and the whole spread of canvass in a cumber, to teach the mate

not to be in such a hurry with his infernal merchantman's side-wings

next time. The last stunsail he hauled down caught full aback before

the wheel could keep her away quick enough; the sheet of it hitched

foul at the boom-end, and crack through went the boom itself, with a

smash that made the ladies think it a case of shipwreck commencing. The

loose scud was flying fast out from behind the top of the clouds, and

spreading away overhead, as if it would catch us on the other side;

while the clouds themselves broke up slowly to both hands, and the

north-east breeze came sweeping along right into the three topsails,

the wind one way and the sea another. As she rounded away steadying

before it, you felt the masts shake in her till the topsails blew out

full; she gave one sudden bolt up with her stern, like an old jackass

striking behind, which capsized three or four passengers in a heap; and

next minute she was surging along through the wide heave of the water

as gallantly as heart could wish, driving a wave under her bows that

swung back under the forechains on both sides, with two boys running up

the rigging far aloft on each mast to stow the royals. The next thing

I looked at was poor Ford's nautical hat lifting alongside on the top

of a wave, as if it were being handed up to him; but no sooner seen,

than it was down in the hollow a quarter of a mile off, a couple of

white gulls making snatches at it and one another, and hanging over

it again with a doubtful sort of a scream. Still the wind was as yet

nothing to speak of when once aft; the sea was getting up slowly, and

the Indiaman's easy roll over it made every one cheerful, in spite of

the shifts they were put to for getting below. When the bell struck for

dinner, the sun was pretty clear, away on our starboard bow; the waves

to south-westward glittered as they rose; one side of the ship shone

bright to the leech of the mainto'gallant-sail, and we left the second

mate hauling down the jibs for want of use for them.

The splendid pace she went at was plain, below in the cuddy, to

everybody; you felt her shoving the long seas aside with the force of

a thousand horses in one, then sweep they came after her, her stern

lifted, she rolled round, and made a floating rush ahead. In the middle

of it all, something darkened the half-open skylight, where I perceived

the Scotch second-mate's twisted nose and red whiskers, as he squinted

down with one eye aloft, and disappeared again; after which I heard

them clue up to'gallant-sails. Still she was driving through it rather

too bodily to let the seas rise under her; you _heard_ the wind hum of

the main-topsail, and sing through betwixt it and the main-course, the

scud flying over the skysail-mast truck, which I could see from below.

The second mate looked in once more, caught the first officer's eye

with a glance aloft, and the gallant mate left attending to the ladies

to go on deck. Down went the skylight frame, and somebody carefully

threw a tarpaulin over it, so that there was only the light from the

port-windows, by which a dozen faces turned still whiter.

The moment I shoved my head out of the booby-hatch, I saw it was

like to turn out a regular gale from nor'-east. Both courses brailed

close-up, and blowing out like rows of big-bladders; the three

topsail-yards down on the caps to reef, their canvass swelling and

thundering on the stays like so many mad elephants breaking loose; the

wild sky ahead of us staring right through in triumph, as it were, and

the wind roaring from aft in her bare rigging; while a crowd of men

in each top were laying out along the foot-ropes to both yard-arms.

Below, they were singing out at the reef-tackles, the idlers tailing on

behind from the cook to the cabin-boys, a mate to each gang, and the

first officer with his hands to his mouth before the wheel, shouting

"Bear a hand!--d'ye hear!--two reefs!" It did one's heart good, and I

entered into the spirit of it, almost forgiving Finch his fine puppy

lingo, when I saw him take it so coolly, standing like a seaman, and

sending his bull's voice right up with the wind into the bellies of

the topsails--so I e'en fell-to myself, and dragged with the steward

upon the mizen reef-tackle till it was chock up. There we were, running

dead before it, the huge waves swelling long and dark after us out

of the mist, then the tops of them scattered into spray; the glaring

white yards swayed slowly over aloft, each dotted with ten or a dozen

sturdy figures, that leant over with the reef-points in their hands,

waiting till the men at the _earings_ gave the word; and Jacobs's face,

as he looked round to do so--hanging on heaven knows what at one of

the ends--was as distinct as possible against the gray scud miles off,

and sixty feet above the water. A middy, without his cap, and his hair

blowing out, stood holding on in the main-top to quicken them; the

first mate waved his hand for the helmsman to "luff a little." The

ship's head was rounding slowly up as she rose on a big blue swell,

that caught a wild gleam on it from westward, when I happened to glance

towards the wheel. I could scarcely trust my eyes--in fact it had never

been less in my mind since coming aboard than at that very point--but

outside one of the round-house doors, which was half open, a few feet

from the bulwark I leant over--of all moments in the day, _there_ stood

Lota Hyde herself at last! Speak of faces!--why, I hadn't even power

to turn farther round, and if I was half out of breath before, what

with the wind and with pulling my share, I was breathless now--all my

notions of her never came up to the look of her face at that instant!

She just half stopped, as it were, at sight of the state of things,

her hands letting go of the large shawl, and her hair streaming from

under a straw hat tied down with a ribbon--her lips parted betwixt

dread and bewilderment, and her eyes wandering round till they settled

a-gazing straight at the scene ahead, in pure delight. I actually

looked away aloft from her again, to catch what it was she seemed to

see that could be so beautiful!--the second reef just made fast, men

crowding in to run down and hoist away with the rest, till, as they

tailed along decks, the three shortened topsails rose faster up against

the scud, and their hearty roaring chorus was as loud as the gale.

"Keep her away, my lad!" said the mate, with another wave of his hand;

the topsails swelled fair before it, and the Indiaman gave a plunge

right through the next sea, rising easily to it, heave after heave.

The setting sun struck two or three misty spokes of his wheel through

a cloud, that made a big wave here and there glitter; the ship's white

yards caught some of it, and a row of broad backs, with their feet

stretching the foot-rope as they stowed the foresail, shone bright out,

red, blue, and striped, upon the hollow of the yellow fore-topsail, in

the midst of the gale; while just under the bowsprit you saw her black

figure-head, with his white turban, and his hand to his breast, giving

a cool salaam now and then to the spray from her bows. At that moment,

though, Lota Hyde's eye was the brightest thing I could find--all the

blue gone out of the waves was in it. As for her seeing myself, I

hadn't had space to think of it yet, when all of a sudden I noticed

her glance light for the first time, as it were, on the mate, who was

standing all the while with his back to her, on the same plank of the

quarterdeck. "Down main-course!" he sung out, putting one hand in his

jacket-pocket; "down both tacks--that's it, my men--down with it!"--and

out it flapped, slapping fiercely as they dragged it by main force into

the bulwark-cleats, till it swelled steady above the main-stay, and the

old ship sprang forward faster than before, with a wild wash of the

Atlantic past her sides. "Another hand to the wheel, here!" said the

first officer. He took a look aloft, leaning to the rise of her bows,

then to windward as she rolled; everything looked trim and weatherly,

so he stepped to the binnacle, where the lamp was ready lighted, and it

just struck me what a smart, good-looking fellow the mate was, with his

sun-burnt face; and when he went to work, straight-forward, no notion

of showing off. "Confound it, though!" thought I of a sudden, seeing

_her_ eyes fixed on him again, and then to seaward. "Mr Macleod," said

he to the second mate, "send below the watch, if you please. This

breeze is first-rate, though!" When he turned round, he noticed Miss

Hyde, started, and took off his cap with a fine bow. "I beg pardon,

ma'am," said he, "a trifle of wind we have! I hope, Miss Hyde, it

hasn't troubled you in the round-house?" What Miss Hyde might have said

I don't know, but her shawl caught a gust out of the spanker, though

she was in the lee of the high poop; it blew over her head, and then

loose--I sprang forward--but the mate had hold of it, and put it over

her again. The young lady smiled politely to the mate, and gave a cold

glance of surprise, as I thought, at me. I felt, that moment, I could

have knocked the mate down and died happy. "Why, sir," said he, with a

cool half sneer, "I fancied none of you gentlemen would have favoured

us this capful of wind--plenty of air there is on deck, though." It

just flashed through my mind what sort of rig I was in--I looked over

my infernal 'long-shore toggery, and no wonder she didn't recollect me

at all! "_Curse_ this confounded folly!" muttered I, and made a dart to

run up the poop-steps, where the breeze took me slap aback, just as the

judge himself opened the larboard door. "Why, Violet!" exclaimed he,

surprised at seeing his daughter, "are you exposing yourself to this

disagreeable--I declare a perfect _storm_!" "But see, papa!" said she,

taking hold of his arm, "how changed the sea is!--and the ship!--just

look where the sun was!" "Get in--get in, do!" kept on her father;

"you can see all that again in some finer place; you should have had

a servant with you, at least, Violet." "I shall come out oftener

than I thought, papa, I can tell you!" said she, in an arch sort of

way, before she disappeared. The mate touched his cap to the judge,

who asked where the captain was. "'Gad sir," said the judge crossly,

"the floor resembles an earthquake--every piece of furniture swings,

sir; 'tis well enough for sleeping, but my family find it impossible

to dine. If this _oolta-poolta_ continues in my apartments, I must

speak to Captain Williamson about it! He must manage to get into some

other part of the sea, where it is less rough," saying which he swayed

himself in and shut the door. I still kept thinking and picturing _her_

face--Lota Hyde's--when she noticed the mate. After all, any one that

knew tack from bowline might reef topsails in a fair wind; but a girl

like _that_ would make more count of a man knowing how to manage wind

and sea, than of the Duke on his horse at Waterloo beating Bonaparte;

and as for talk, he would jaw away the whole voyage, no doubt, about

moonlight and the ocean, and your genteel fancy mariners! "By George,

though!" thought I, "if the mate's a better man than me, hang me--it's

all right; but burn my wig if I don't go and turn a Hindoo fakeer, with

my one arm stuck up in the air till I die! Go it, old lady!" said I, as

I glanced over the side before going below for the night, "roll away,

only shake something or other to _do_ out of the pace you're going at!"

The next morning, when Westwood and I went on deck, there was still

a long sea running after us. However, by noon the sun came sifting

through aloft, the breeze got warm, the decks were dry as a bone,

and one just saw the large dark-blue swells lift up alongside with a

shower of spray, between the seams of the bulwarks. By six o'clock,

again, it was got pretty dusk ahead, and I strolled forward right to

the heel of the bowsprit, with Westwood, looking down through her

head-boards into the heap of white foam that washed up among the

woodwork every time she plunged. One knot of the men were sitting with

their legs over the break of the top-gallant forecastle, swinging as

she rolled--laughing, roaring, and singing as loud as they could bawl,

since the wind carried it all forward out of the officers' hearing. I

was rather surprised to see and hear that Jacobs's friends, Bill Dykes

and Tom, were there: the rogues were taking back their savage to the

Andaman Isles again, I suppose. "Well, my lads," said Tom, a regular

sample of the man-o'-war's-man: "this is what I calls balling it off!

That mate knows how to make her go, any how!" "We'll soon be into

tropical regents, I consider!" remarked Bill, who made a point of never

using sea-phrases except ashore, when he came out double salt, to make

up for his gentility afloat. "Hum," grumbled a big ugly fellow, the

same so flattered at the wheel by little Tommy, "I doesn't like your

fair winds! I'll tell you what, mates, we'll be havin' it puff more

from east'ard ere third watch." "What's the odds, Harry, old ship?"

said Tom, "a fair wind still!" "I say, my lads," exclaimed Tom again,

looking along toward the poop, "yonder's the ould naboob squinting out

of the round-house doors!--what's he after now, I wonder?" On stooping

down, accordingly, I could see the judge's face with the binnacle-light

shining on it, as he swayed to and fro in the doorway, seemingly in

a passion at something or other. "Why," said Bill, "I consider he

can't altogether circumstand the shindy as this here roll kicks up

inside of his blessed paliss!" "Nabob, does ye call him!" said Harry,

sulkily; "I'll tell you what, 'mates, he ben't nothin' but a reg'lar

bloody ould tyrant! T'other mornin' there, I just chances to brush

against him as I kiles up a rope, says he '_Fellow!_' an' says he to

the skipper, 'I'd take it kind,' says he, 'if ye'd horder them commin

sailors for to pay more contention alongside o' _my_ legs, Captin

Willumsen!' Why, do the old beggar not think as a feller ben't a _man_

as well as hisself, with his _commin sailors_, an' be blowed to him!"

"Well though, Harry, old ship," said Tom, "an't that daurter of his'n

a jewel! I say, 'mates, she's all rounded into the head, and a clear

run from aft, like a corvette model! My eye, that hair of hers is worth

gold; I'd go down on the deck to please her, d'ye see!" "No doubt,"

says Bill, "she's what I call a exact sparkler!" "Well, I doesn't

know," said Harry. "Last vy'ge but one we'd got one aboard, a'most

beautifuller--half as high again, an' twice her beam--I'm not sure but

_she_--" "All my eye, messmates!" broke in Tom; "that one were built

for _stowing_, ye see, bo', like yer cargo lumpers. Now, this here

young gal minds me o' no other blessed thing but the Nymph corvette's

figure-head--and that warn't her match, neither! She don't look down

upon a sailor, I can tell ye; there I see her t'other morning-watch a

talkin' to Jacobs yonder, as pleasant and cheery as----Hullo, there's

the captain comed out o' the naboob's cabin, and speaking with the mate

by the compass,--blessed if they an't agoin' to alter her course!"

"Send aft here to the braces!" sung out the first officer to the

boatswain. "Blow me, shipmates, that's yeer naboob now, I'll bet a

week's grog," growled Harry; "ship's course as fair as a handspike

through a grummet; couldn't bring the wind more aft; b--t my eyes, the

sea's comin' to be bought and sold!" Whatever it might be _for_, in

came the starboard yard-arms till she lay over a little; down studding

and top-gallant sails, as neither of them could stand it except from

aft; and off went the old ship rising high athwart the seas, her head

sou'-south-east, and one streak of broken yellow light, low down to

westward on her lee quarter. It was beginning to blow harder, too, and

by eight bells it was "Reef topsails, single reef!" The waves played

slap on her weather side, the heavy sprays came showering over her

bulwarks forward, and the forecastle planks were far from being so

comfortable for a snooze as the night before. As soon as the wheel was

relieved, and the other watch below, the "ugly man" and his companions

returned. "Mates," said he, solemnly, planting his back against the

bitts, "I've sailed this five-and-twenty year before the mast, an' I

never yet seed the likes o' _that_! Take my say for it, we're _on_ a

wind now, but afore next mornin' we'll be close-hauled, beating up

against it." "Well," said another, "she leaks a deal in the eyes of her

below; in that case, Harry, _your_ watch as slings in the fore-peak'll

be all afloat by that time." "What day did this here craft sail on, I

asks?" said the sailmaker gravely. "Why, a Thursday night, old ship,"

replied several eagerly. "No," went on the sailmaker; "you counts

sea-fashion, shipmates; but till ye're clear o' the pilot, ye know, its

land fashion ye ought for to go by. 'Twas a _Friday_ by that 'ere said

reckoning, shipmates." "No! so it was though," said the rest--"it don't

_look_ well." "Howsomedever I'm not goin' to come for to go and be a

croaker," continued the sailmaker in a voice like a ghost's. "Well,

luck or no luck, 'mates," grumbled big Harry, "if so be them larboard

bowlines is hauled taut by the morning watch, blow me if I don't be

upsides with that 'ere bloody ould naboob--that's all."

Next morning, after all, it was easy to feel the ship had really been

hauled close on a wind. When we went up, the weather was clearing,

though with a strongish gale from eastward, a heavy sea running, on

which the Indiaman strained and creaked as she rose, rolling slowly

to windward with her three double-reefed topsails strained full, then

pitched head into it, as a cloud of foam and spray flew over her

weather bow. It was quite early, the decks lately washed down, and the

Indian judge walking the weather quarterdeck as grave and comfortable

as if it was all right. The captain was with him, and two mates to

leeward. "Sail O!" hailed a man on the foreyard. "Where away?" sung

out the mate of the watch. "Broad abeam!" The captain went up to the

poop, and I stood on the foremost carronade near the main rigging,

where I could just see her now and then white against the blue haze

between the hollows of the waves, as the Indiaman lifted. "There she

is!" said I, thinking it was Westwood that stopped behind me; it was

the judge, however, and as soon as I got down he stepped up, holding on

with one hand to a backstay. The ship was rising after a pitch, every

bulkhead and timber in her creaking, when all of a sudden I felt by

my feet what all sailors feel the same way--she was coming up in the

wind too fast to mount with the next wave, and a regular _comber_ it

was going to be. I looked to the wheel--there was big Harry himself

with a grin on his face, and his eye on Sir Charles, as he coolly gave

her half a weather-spoke more, and then whirled it back again to meet

her. "For heaven's sake, look out, sir!" exclaimed I. "Why so I do,"

said the judge, rather good-naturedly. "'Zounds! what's--" You felt

the whole ship stop creaking for a moment, as she hung with the last

wave--"Hold on!" shouted a mid--she gave a dull quiver from stem to

stern, and I fairly pulled the judge close into the bulwark, just as

smash, like thunder, came a tremendous green sea over us, three in

one, washing down into the lee scuppers. The old gentleman staggered

up, dripping like a poodle, and unable to see--one heard the water

trickling through the skylights, and stepping away down stairs like

a fellow with iron heels; while there was the sailor at the wheel

grinding down his spokes in right earnest, looking aloft at the shaking

fore-topsail, and the Indiaman seemingly doubtful whether to fall

off or broach-to. Up she rose again, however, and drove round with

her Turk-head in the air, then dip through the spray as gallantly as

ever. "Send that lubber from the wheel, Mr Macleod!" said the captain

angrily, when he came down, "he nearly broached the ship to just now!"

The "ugly man" put on a double-gloomy face, and grumbled something

about her "steering wild;" but the knowing squint he gave Jacobs, who

relieved him, was enough to show me he was one of the best helmsmen

aboard. As for the judge, he hadn't the least notion it was anything

more than a natural mischance, owing to exposing himself. He eyed the

bulwark as if he couldn't understand how any wave was able to rise over

it, while the captain was apologising, and hoping he wouldn't be the

worse. "Eh, young gentleman!" said Sir Charles of a sudden, turning

round to me, after a glance from the weather side to the lee one, "now

I observe the circumstances, the probability is I should have had

myself severely injured on the opposite side there, had it not been

for your presence of mind, sir--eh?" Here I made a bow, and looked as

modest as I could. "I perceive you are wet, young gentleman," said he

again; "you'd better change your dress--eh?" "Thank you, sir!" I said;

and as he walked off quite drenched to his cabin, with the captain, I

heard him remark it was "wonderfully intelligent in a mere griffin."

However, the wind soon got down to a fine top-gallant breeze; less

of a sea on, the clouds sunk in a long gray bank to leeward, and the

strange sail plain abeam of us--a large ship steering seemingly more

off the wind than the Seringapatam, with top-gallant-sails set--you

could just see the heads of her courses, and her black lower-yards,

when both of us rose together. Our first officer was all alive at the

sight; the reefs were out of our topsails already, and he soon had

us ploughing along under ordinary canvass, though still hugging the

wind. In a short time the stranger appeared to take the challenge, for

he slanted his yards, clapped on royals, and hauled down a stunsail,

heading our course, till he was one body of white cloth on the horizon.

For a while we seemed to gain on her; but after dinner, there was the

other ship's hull up on our lee-bow, rising her white streak out of the

water steadily, and just lifting at times on the long blue seas: she

was fore-reaching on us, as plain as could be. The mate gave a stamp

on the deck, and kept her away a little to set a stunsail. "Why," said

I to Westwood, "he'll fall to leeward of himself!" "She's too much _by

the head_, Collins," said Westwood; "that's it!" "Hasn't he the sense

to take the fore-course off her?" said I, "instead of packing more

_on_! Why, that craft weathers on us like a schooner--I wish you and

I had the Indiaman for an hour or two, Tom!" It wasn't an hour before

we could see the very waves splashing up under her black weather-side,

and over her high bows, as she slanted right through it and rose to

windward again, standing up to cross our course--a fine frigate-built

Indiaman, sharper stemmed than her kind in ordinary, and square in her

spread; one yardarm just looking over the other as they ranged aloft,

and all signs of a weatherly craft. "That's the Duke o' Bedford!" said

a sailor at the braces to his companions, "all oak planks, and not a

splinter of teak in _her_! No chance!" Out flew the British colours

from her mizen-peak, and next the Company's striped ensign at her

fore-royal-mast head, as a signal to speak. However, the Seringapatam

only answered by showing her colours, and held on. All of a sudden the

other Indiaman was seen slowly falling off before the wind, as if in

scorn at such rude manners, and sure of passing us if she chose. For a

moment the red sunset glanced through betwixt all three of her masts,

every rope as fine as wire; then the canvass swung broad against it,

blood-red from the sun, and she showed us her quarter-gallery, with a

glimpse of her stern-windows glittering,--you even made out the crowd

of passengers and soldiers on her poop, and a man or two going up her

rigging. The sea beyond her lay as blue as blue could be, what with

the crimson streak that came zig-zag on both sides of her shadow, and

gleamed along the smooth troughs, taking a crest or two to dance on by

the way; and what with the rough of it near at hand, where the tops of

the dark waves ran hither and thither in broad white flakes, we surging

heavily over them.

In a few minutes more the sun was not only down, but the clouds banked

up to westward, of a deep purple; and almost at once you saw nothing

of the other ship, except when a stray streak somehow or other caught

her rising, or her mast-heads came across a pale line in the clouds.

The breeze got pleasanter as the night went on, and the Seringapatam

rattled away in fine style, careening to it by herself.

Well, you know, nothing could be better for a good understanding and

high spirits amongst us than a fast course, fine weather, and entering

the tropics. As for the tropics, if you have only a roomy ship and a

good run of wind, as we had, in those latitudes everything outside of

you seems almost to have double the stuff in it that air and water

have in other places; while _inside_ of one, again, one felt twice the

life he had before, and everybody else came out _newer_ a good deal

than on the parlour rug at home. As the days got each hotter than the

last, and the sea bluer and bluer, we began to think better of the

heavy old Seringapatam's pace, teak though she was, and her sole good

point right before the wind. Every night she lighted her binnacle

sooner, till deuce the bit of twilight there was, and the dark sky came

down on us like the extinguisher over a candle. However, the looks of

things round and aloft made full amends for it, as long as we held the

"Trades;" old Neptune shifting his scenes there so quickly, that nobody

missed getting weather and air, more than he could help, were it only

a sight of how the Indiaman got on, without trouble to any living soul

save the man at the wheel, as one long, big, bright wave shoved her to

another, and the slower they rose the more business she seemed to do

of herself. By the time they had furbished her up at their leisure,

the Seringapatam had a queer Eastern style, too, throughout; with her

grass mattings and husky _coir_ chafing-gear, the yellow varnish about

her, and her three topsails of country-canvass, cut narrow towards the

head--bamboo stunsail booms, and spare bits of bamboo always ready for

everything; besides the bilious-like gold-coloured patches here and

there in the rest of her sails, and the outlandish figure-head, that

made you sometimes think there might be twenty thousand of them under

the bows, dancing away with her like Juggernaut's travelling pagoda.

The decks were lively enough to look at; the men working quietly by

twos and threes about the bulwarks all day long, and pairs of them

to be made out at different points aloft, yarning away comfortably

together, as the one passed the ball for the other's serving-mallet,

with now a glance at the horizon, and now a grin at the passengers

below, or a cautious squint at the top of the mate's cap. White

awnings triced over poop and quarterdeck, the cover of the waist

hammock-netting clean scrubbed, and the big shady main-course half

brailed-up, rustling and bulging above the boats and booms amidships;

every hatchway and door with a round funnel of a wind-sail swelling

into it, and their bellies moving like so many boa-constrictors come

down from aloft, and going in to catch cadets. You saw the bright white

sky dazzling along under the awning-cheeks, that glared on it like

snow; and the open quarterdeck ports let in so many squares of shifting

blue light, with a draught of air into the hot carronade muzzles,

that seemed to gasp for it with their red tompions stuck out like

tongues. The very look of the lifting blue water on the shady side was

refreshing, and the brighter the light got, _it_ grew the darker blue.

You listened for every cool splash of it on the bends, and every rustle

of the canvass aloft; and instead of thinking, as the landsmen did, of

green leaves and a lazy nook for shelter, why, to my fancy there's a

deuced sigh more satisfaction in good _dark blue_, with a spray over

the cat-head to show you're going, and with somewhat to go for! For

want of better, one would have given his ears to jump in head-foremost,

and have a first-rate bathe--the very sea itself kept rising up

alongside to make an easy dive for one, and sinking into little round

troughs again, where the surges would have sprinkled over your head.

Now and then a bigger wave than ordinary would go swelling up, and out

sprang a whole glittering shower of flying-fish, freckling the dark

side with drops, and went flittering over into the next, or skimming

the crests out of sight into a hollow. The writers and cadets were in

high feather at knowing they were in the same latitude as India, and

appeared in all sorts of straw hats, white trousers, and white jackets.

Ford had left off talking of going aloft for a while, to flourish about

his swimming--when he looked over with the surgeon into the smooth of

a hollow, and saw something big and green, like all immense cucumber,

floating along within a fathom or two of the ship, deep down in the

blue water. While the griffin asked what it was, a little ripple broke

above, a wet black horn came right out of it, and two devilish round

eyes glared up at us ahead of it, as we leant over the quarter, set

wide in a broad black snout, shaped like a gravedigger's shovel; then

it sank away into the next wave. Ford shivered, in spite of the heat.

"The devil?" inquired one of the writers, coolly, to the surgeon. "Not

just him," said the Scotchman; "it's only the first _shark_!"

The young ladies, in their white dresses, now made you think of angels

gliding about: as to the only one I had an eye for, by this time it

wasn't of not seeing her often enough I had to complain, as she seemed

to delight in nothing else but being somewhere or other upon deck;

first one part of the ship, then another, as if to see how different

the look-out could be made, or to watch something in the waves or

the horizon. Instead of sitting with a needle or a book, like the

rest, with the corner of one eye toward the gentlemen, or talking and

giggling away at no allowance, she would be noticing a man aloft as if

she were there herself, or trying to see past a sail, as if she fancied

there was something strange on the other side of it. The rest of the

girls appeared shy of her at first, no doubt on account of the Judge's

separate quarters and his grandee style; next, they made acquaintance,

she speaking and smiling just as if she had known them before; then,

again, most of them seemingly got jealous because the cadets squinted

after her; while old Rollock said Miss Hyde would be the beauty on

Chowringee Course, and the first officer was eternally pointing out

things to her, like a showman at a fair. However, she seemed not to

mind it at all, either way: those that did talk to her would scarce

hear her answer ere they lost her, and there she was, looking quietly

down by herself into the ripples alongside; a minute after, she would

be half-playing with little Tommy, and making companions of Tommy's

young sisters, to see the sheep, the pigs, and the cow, or feed the

poultry. As for the handsome "first officer," when he caught occasion

for his politeness, she took it graciously enough, and listened to

all he said; till, of a sudden, a smile would break over her face,

and she seemed to me to put him off as easy as a duchess--on the

score, it might be, of the Judge's looking for her off the poop, or

something else of the kind. 'Twas the more curious how much at home

she seemed amongst the men at work, when she chanced to go "forward"

with Tommy and his sisters, as they skipped hither and thither: the

rough, blue-shirted fellows took the quids out of their cheeks as soon

as they saw the party coming from aft, and began to smirk, shoving the

tar-buckets and ropes aside. One forenoon, an old lady under the poop

awning, where she and her daughter were sewing together at a bright

strip of needlework, asked me to hold her woollen yarns for her as

she balled them off--being the red coat for a sepoy killing a tiger,

which her daughter was making in yellow. I couldn't well refuse,

seeing that amongst the ladies I was reckoned a mild, quiet young man.

Even in these days, I must say I had a good deal of that look, and at

home they used always to call me "quiet Ned." My mother, good soul,

never would believe I broke windows, killed cats, or fought, and the

mystery to her always is _why_ the neighbours had a spite at me; for

if I had been a wild boy, she said, or as noisy as little Brown next

door, why she wouldn't have objected to my going to sea!--that noisy

little Brown, by the bye, is a fat banker. So in I had to stick my

thumbs at arms'-length, and stoop down to the old lady, the more with

a will since I guessed what they were talking of. "Well though, Kate,"

continued the old lady, winding away at the thread, "you cannot deny

her to be a charming creature, my love?" "Oh, if you mean _pretty_!"

said the girl, "I don't _want_ to deny it--not _I_, ma'am!--why should

I, indeed?" "Pity she's a little light-headed," said her mother in a

musing way. "_Affected_, you mean, mother!" said Miss Fortescue, "and

haughty." "Do you know, Kate," replied the old lady, sighing, "I fear

she'll soon _go_ in India!" "_Go?_" said the daughter sharply. "Yes;

she won't stand the hot season as I did--these flighty girls never do.

Poor thing! she certainly hasn't _your_ stamina now, my love!" Here

Miss Fortescue bit her lip, tossed her head, and was saying that wasn't

what she cared about, though in fact she looked ready to cry; when just

at the moment I saw Lota Hyde herself half above the little gallery

stair, gazing straight at me, for the first time, too; a curious kind

of half-smile on her face, as I stood with my paws out, the old lady

jerking the yarn off my wrists, and I staring right over her big bonnet

at the sky astern of the awning, pretending not to listen. All at

once my mouth fell, and before she could turn her face away from the

funny countenance I no doubt put on, I saw her cheek rosy and her eyes

sparkle with laughter, instead of seeming like one to die soon. For my

part I couldn't stand it at all, so I just bolted sheer round and made

three strides to the poop ladder, as dignified as was possible with

ever so many plies of red yarn foul of my wrists, and a big red ball

hopping after me when I'd vanished, like a fellow running from a hot

shot! I daresay they thought on the poop I'd had a stroke of the sun on

my brain; but till next day I kept clear of the passengers, and took to

swigging off stiff nor'-westers of grog, as long as Westwood would let

me.

Next evening, when the cuddy dinner was scarce over, I went up to the

poop, where there was no one to be seen; the sun just setting on our

starboard-quarter in a golden blaze that stretched overhead, with

flakes of it melting, as 'twere, all over the sky to port, and dropping

in it like threads of oil in water; the ship with a light breeze aft,

and stunsails packed large upon her, running almost due for the Line.

The waves to westward were like liquid light, and the eddies round our

counter came glittering out, the whole spread of her mizen and main

canvass shining like gold cloth against the fore: then 'twas but the

royals and skysails brighter than ever, as the big round sun dipped

down with a red streak or two, and the red waterline, against his

hot old face. Every blue surge between had a clear green edge about

its crest, the hollows turning themselves inside out from deep purple

into bright blue, and outside in again,--and the whole rim of the

sea grew out cool and clear away from the ship's taffrail. A pair of

sharp-headed dolphins that had kept alongside for the last few minutes,

swimming near the surface, turned tail round, the moment I put my nose

over the bulwark, and shot off like two streaks of a rainbow after the

flying-fish. I was just wondering where Lota Hyde could be, this time,

when on a sudden I observed little Tommy poke his curly head out of the

booby-hatch, peeping cautiously round; seeing nobody, however, save

the man at the wheel, who was looking over his shoulder at the sun,

the small rogue made a bolt out of the companion, and scampered aft

under the awning to the Judge's starboard door, with nothing on but his

nightshirt. There he commenced kicking and shoving with his bare feet

and arms, till the door flew open, and over went Tommy on his nose,

singing out in fine style. The next thing I heard was a laugh like the

sound of a silver bell; and just as the boy's sister ran up in a fright

lest he had gone overboard, Violet Hyde came out leading the little

chap wrapped in a long shawl that trailed astern of him, herself with

a straw bonnet barely thrown upon her head. "Tommy says you put him

to bed too soon, Jane!" said she smiling. "Iss!" said Master Thomas,

stoutly, "go 'way, Dzane!" "You hadn't bid me good-night--wasn't that

it, Tom? But oh! _what_ a sea!" exclaimed she, catching sight of it

under the awning. The little fellow wanted to see it too, so the young

lady lifted him up in her arms, no small weight I daresay, and they

both looked over the bulwark: the whole sky far out of the awning to

westward being spotted with orange scales, turning almost scarlet,

faster than the dusk from both ends could close in; the clear greenish

tint of it above the openings of the canvass, going up into fathomless

blue overhead, the horizon purple, and one or two still, black clouds

tipped with vermilion against the far sky--while the Indiaman stole

along, scarce plashing under her bends. Every now and then you heard a

whizz and a flutter, as the flying-fish broke out of a bigger surge,

sometimes just missing the ship's side: at last two or three fell over

the mizen chains, and pop came one all of a sudden right into the white

breast of Miss Hyde's dress inside her scarf, where only the wings

kept it from disappearing. She started, Jane screamed, but the little

boy coolly pulled it out, commencing to overhaul it in great delight.

"Oh fat a funny ickoo bird!" shouted he, "it's fell down out of 'ese

t'ees!" looking aloft. "No, no," said Miss Hyde, laughing, as she drew

her shoulders together with a shiver, "birds' noses don't drop water!

'Twill die if you don't put it in again, Tommy--'tis a fish!" "A fish!"

said he, opening his eyes wider, and smacking his lips, "yes, Tommy

eat it for my beckfust!" However the young lady took it out of his

hand and dropped it overboard; on which the small ogre went off rather

discontented, and kissed her more as a favour than otherwise. It was

almost dark already, the water shining up in the ship's wake, and the

stars coming out aloft; so I was left wondering at the impudence of

flying-fish, and the blessings of being a fat little imp in a frock and

trousers, compared with this puzzle of a "traverse," betwixt _being_ a

third lieutenant and hailing for a "griffin."

The night following, after a sultry hot day, the wind had varied a

good deal, and the ship was running almost close-hauled on a warm

south-easterly breeze, with somewhat of a swell in the water. Early in

the first watch there was a heavy shower, after which I went on deck,

leaving Westwood at his book. The half-moon was just getting down to

leeward, clear of a ragged dark cloud, and a long space of faint white

light spread away on the horizon, behind the sheets of the sails hauled

aft; so that you just saw a sort of a glimmer under them, on the black

heave of the swell between. Every time she rolled to leeward on it, a

gleam of the moonshine slipped inside the shadow of her high bulwarks,

from one wet carronade to another, and went glistening over the moist

decks, and among the boats and booms, that looked like some big brute

or other lying stretched out on his paws, till you saw the men's faces

on the forecastle as if they were so many mutineers skulking in the

dark before they rushed aft: then up she righted again, and all was

dark inboard. The awnings were off, and the gruff third mate creaking

slowly to and fro in his soaked shoes; the Judge stood talking with the

captain before one of the round-house doors; directly after I noticed

a young lady's figure in a white dress close by the mizen-rigging,

apparently intent on the sea to leeward. "Well, now or never!" thought

I, stepping over in the shadow of the main-sheet. I heard her draw a

long breath: and then, without turning her head at the sound of my

foot, "I wonder if there is anything so strange in India," exclaimed

she; "_is_ there now?" "No, by----, no, madam!" said I, starting, and

watching as the huge cloud grew darker, with a rusty stain in it, while

three or four broad-backed swells, one beyond the other, rose up black

against the setting moon, as if they'd plunge right into her. Miss Hyde

turned round, with one hand on the bulwark to steady herself, and half

looked at me. "I thought--" said she; "where is papa?--I thought my

father--" I begged pardon for intruding, but next minute she appeared

to have forgotten it, and said, in a musing sort of way, partly to

herself, partly to me--"I seem to _remember_ it all--as if I just saw

that black wave--and--that monstrous cloud--over again! Oh! really that

is the _very_ same top it had _then_--see!" "Yes," said I, leaning

forward, with a notion I _had_ seen it before, though heaven knew

when. "Did you ever read about Columbus and Vasco da Gama?" asked she,

though directly afterwards her features broke into a laughing smile as

she caught sight of mine--at the thought, I suppose, of my ridiculous

figure the last time she saw me. "No, never," said I; "but look to

windward, ma'am; 'tis coming on a squall again. For heaven's sake, Miss

Hyde, go in! We're to have another shower, and that pretty thick. I

wonder the mate don't stow the royals." "What do you mean?" said she,

turning. "Why are you alarmed, sir? I see nothing particular." The

sea was coming over, in a smooth, round-backed swell, out of a dirty,

thick jumble of a sky, with a pitchblack line behind--what Ford would

have called "wild" by daylight; but the young lady's eye naturally saw

no more in it than a dark night. Here the Judge came over from the

binnacle, giving me a nod, as much as to say he recollected me. "I am

afraid, sir," said I, "if you don't make haste, you'll get wet." "How!"

said Sir Charles, "'tis an exceedingly pleasant night, I think, after

such a deuced hot day. They don't know how to cool rooms here--this

perpetual wood retains heat till midnight, sir! That detestable

pitch precludes walking--the sea absolutely glares like tin. _Why_

do you suppose so now--eh, young gentleman?" said he again, turning

back, all of a sudden, with his daughter on his arm. "Why--why--why,

Sir Charles," said I, hesitating betwixt sham innocence and scarce

knowing what reason to give; "why, I just think--that is to say,

it's my feeling, you see." "Ah, ah, I _do_ see," replied the Judge,

good-humouredly; "but you shouldn't ape the sailor, my good fellow,

as I fancy you do a little. I don't particularly admire the class,

but they always have grounds for what they say in their profession,

frequently even acute. At your aunt's, Lady Somers's, now, Violet, who

was naturally so surrounded by naval officers, what I had to object to

was, not their want of intelligence, but their forwardness. Eh! eh!

who--what is _that_?" exclaimed he suddenly, looking straight up into

the dark, as five or six large drops fell on his face out of it. All

at once you heard a long sigh, as it were, in the canvass aloft, a

clap like two or three carronades fired off, as all the sails together

went in to the masts--then a hum in the air far and near--and whish!

rush! came the rain in sheets and bucketfuls off the edge of a cloud

over our very heads, plashing and washing about the deck with coils

of rope; ship rolling without a breath of wind in her sails; sails

flapping out and in; the rain pouring down ten times faster than the

scupper-holes would let it out, and smoking gray in the dark hollow of

the swells, that sank under the force of it. The first officer came on

deck, roaring in the hubbub to clue up and furl the royals before the

wind came again. It got pitch-dark, you couldn't see your hand before

you, and we had all lost mark of each other, as the men came shoving in

between us. However I knew whereabouts Miss Hyde was, so I felt along

the larboard rigging till I found a backstay clasped in her hands,

and the soaked sleeve of her muslin dress, while she leant back on a

carronade, to keep from being jerked down in the water that washed up

over her feet with every roll, full of ropes and a capstan-bar or two.

Without saying a word, I took up Lota in my arms, and carried her aft

in spite of the roll and confusion, steering for the glimmer of the

binnacle, till I got her inside one of their own cabins, where there

was a lamp swinging about, and laid her on a sofa. I felt somehow or

other, as I went, that the sweet creature hadn't fainted, though all

the while as still as death; accordingly I made off again at once to

find the Judge, who, no doubt, was calling for his daughter, with a

poor chance of being heard. In a minute or two more the rain was over;

it was light enough to make out the horizon, as the belt of foam came

broadening out of it; the ship gave two or three wild bounds, the wheel

jolting and creaking: up swelled the black waves again over one side,

the topsails flapped full as the squall rushed roaring into them, and

away she rose; then tore into it like a scared horse, shaking her head

and throwing the snow-white foam into her forechains. 'Twas as much as

three men could do to grind down her wheel, leaning and grinning to it;

you saw just the Indiaman herself, scarce so far forward as the booms,

and the broad swell mounting with her out of the dark, as she slowly

squared yards before it, taking in to'gallant-sails while she did so,

with her topsail-yards lowered on the caps. However, the look of it was

worse than its force, else the swell wouldn't have risen so fast, as

every sailor knew; and by two bells of the mid-watch she was bowling

under all, as easy as before, the mate of the watch setting a stunsail.

When I went down, shaking myself like a Newfoundland, Westwood was

swinging in his cot with a book turned to the lamp, reading _Don

Quixote_ in Spanish. "Bless me, Ned!" said he, "you seem to like

it! paying fair and weathering it too!" "Only a little adventure,

Westwood!" said I, laughing. "Why, here have I been enjoying better

adventures than we seem likely to have," said he, "without stirring a

hand, except for the wild swings you gave me from deck. Here's _Don

Quixote_--" "Don Quixote be hanged!" said I: "I'd rather wear ship in

a gale, myself, than all the humbug that never happened--_out_ of an

infernal play-book. What's the use of _thinking_ you see service, when

you don't? After all, you couldn't _expect_ much till we've crossed the

Line--nothing like the tropics, or the Cape, for thickening a plot,

Tom. Then there's the Mozambique, you know!" "Well, we'll see," said

Westwood, lazily, and half asleep.

The whole next day would have been weary enough in itself, as not a

single glimpse of the fair Lota could I catch; and the weather, between

the little puffs of air and squalls we had, was fit to have melted poor

Ford to the bone, but for the rain. However, that day was sufficient,

by fits and starts, to bring us up to the Line; and, before crossing

it, which we did by six o'clock in one of the black squalls, half of

the passengers had been pretty well ducked by Neptune and his gang,

besides. Rare fun we had of it for three or four hours on end; the

cadets and writers showing fight in a body, the Yankee being regularly

keelhauled, tarred, and feathered, though I believe he had crossed the

Line twice by land; while the Scotch surgeon was found out, in spite

of his caution, never to have been lower than the West Indies--so he

got double ration. A word to Jacobs took Westwood Scot-free; but,

for my own part, wishing of course to blind the officers, I let the

men stick the tar-brush in my mouth the first word I spoke, and was

shaved like the mischief, not to speak of plumping afterwards behind

the studding-sail curtain into three feet of water, where I absolutely

saved Ford from drowning, he being as sick as a dog.

Late at night, the breeze held and freshened; and, being Saturday

night, the gentlemen in the cuddy kept it uproariously after their

troubles, drinking and singing songs, Tom Little's and your sentimental

affairs; till, being a bit flushed myself, I was on the point of giving

them one of Dibdin's, when I thought better of it, and went on deck

instead. The mate was there, however, and his red-whiskered Scotch

sub with the twisted snout, leaning on the capstan with their noses

together. The night was dark, and the ship made a good noise through

the water; so "hang it!" thought I, "somehow or other I'll have out a

stave of 'Black-eyed Susan' at the top of my pipe, though overboard

I go for it!" There was an old spare topsail-yard slung alongside to

larboard, as far as the quarter-boat, and I went up to the poop to

get over and sit on it; especially when I found Ford's friend, the

fat midshipman, was in the boat itself, "caulking"[9] his watch out,

as he did every night in a fresh place. I was no sooner there, again,

than I saw a light in the aftermost gallery window, and took it in

my head if I sung _there_, why, in place of being afraid there was

some one under her casement, that and the wind and water together

would put her to sleep, if she was the worse of last night--in fact I

may say I was a little "_slewed_"[10] at the time. How to get there,

though, was the matter, it being rather nice practice to sling over

an Indiaman's quarter-gallery, bulging out from her steep counter:

accordingly, first I took the end of a coil round the mizen-shrouds,

and made a bowline-knot to creep down the stern-mouldings with, and

then swing free by help of a guide-line to boot. Just before letting

go of the taffrail, another fancy struck me, to hitch the guide-line

to the trigger of the life-buoy that hung ready for use; not that I'd

the notion of saving myself if I went overboard, but just because of

the good joke of a fellow slipping his own life-buoy, and then cruising

away with a light at his masthead back to the Line. 'Twas curious--but

when I was "two or three cloths in the wind," far from growing stupid,

I used always to get a sort of cunning that would have made me try and

cheat a purser; so away I lowered myself till the rope was taut, when

I slipped easy enough round the counter, below the window. Every time

she rolled, out I swung, and in again, till I steadied with my feet,

slacking off the other line from one hand. Then I began to give voice

like old Boreas himself, with a sort of a notion, at each shove I got,

how I was rocking the Indiaman like a big cradle, as Jacobs did his

baby. All at once, I felt the rope was _giving_ off the belaying-pin,

till I came down with a jolt under the window below; only singing the

louder, as it was half open, and I could just look in. With every wash

of the waves, the water, a couple of fathoms under my feet, blazed

up like fire, and the wake ran boiling out from the black stern by

the rudder, like the iron out of a furnace: now and then there came a

sulky flare of dumb lightning to leeward, and showed the black swell

out of the dark for miles. I fancied I didn't care for the water, but

I began to think 'twas rather uncomfortable the notion of sousing into

such an infernally flame-looking stream: I was actually in a fright

at being boiled, and not able to swim. So I dropped chorus to haul

myself up; when of a sudden, by the lamp inside the state-room, I saw

Winterton and Ford come reeling in, one after the other, as drunk

as lords. Winterton swayed about quietly on his legs for a minute,

and then looked gravely at Ford, as if he'd got a dreadful secret to

make known. "Ford!" said he. "Ay," said Ford, feeling to haul off his

trousers,--"ay--avast you--blub-lub-lubber!" "I say, Ford!" said the

cadet again, in a melancholy way, fit to melt a marlinspike, and then

fell to cry--Ford all the time pulling off his trousers, with a cigar

in his mouth, till he got on a chest, and contrived to flounder into

his cot with his coat on. After that he stretched over to put the lamp

out, carefully enough; but he let fall his cigar, and one leg of his

nankeen trousers hung out of the cot, just scraping the deck every time

he swung. I watched, accordingly, holding on by the sill, till I saw

a spark catch in the stuff--and there it was, swinging slowly away in

the dark, with a fiery ring creeping round the leg of the trousers,

ready to blow into a flame as soon as it had a clear swing. No doubt

the fool would come down safe enough himself with his cot; but I knew

Winterton kept powder in the cabin sufficient to blow up the deck

above, where that sweet girl was sleeping at the moment. "Confound

it!" I thought, quite cooled by the sight, "the sooner I get on deck

the better!" However, you may fancy my thoughts when I heard men at

the taffrail, hauling on the spanker-boom guys, so I held on till

they'd go forward again: suddenly the mate's voice sung out to know

"what lubber had belayed the slack of a topsail-clueline _here_?" Down

I went with the word, as the rope was thrown off, with just time to

save myself by a clutch of the portsill at arm's-length--where, heaven

knew, I couldn't keep long. The mate looked over and caught sight

of my face, by a flicker of the summer lightning, as I was slipping

down: I gave him one curse as loud as I could hail, and let go the

moulding--"Man overboard!" shouted he, and the men after him: however

I wasn't altogether overboard yet, for I felt the other part of the

rope bring me up with a jerk and a swing right under the quarter-boat,

where I clung like a cat. How to get on deck again, without being seen,

was the question, and anxious enough I was at thought of the burning

train inside; when out jumped some one over my head: I heard a splash

in the water, and saw a fellow's face go sinking into the bright wake

astern, while the boat itself was coming down over me from the davits.

I still had the guide-line from the life-buoy round my wrist, and one

moment's thought was enough to make me give it a furious tug, when

away I sprang clear into the eddies. The first thing I saw at coming

up was the ships' lighted stern-windows driving to leeward, then the

life-buoy flaring and dipping on a swell, and a bare head, with two

hands, sinking a few feet off. I made for him at once, and held him up

by the hair as I struck out for the buoy. A couple of minutes after,

the men in the boat had hold of us and it; the ship came sheering round

to the wind, and we were very shortly aboard again. "Confound it,

Simm, what took you overboard, man?" asked the mid in the boat at his

dripping messmate, the fat reefer. "Oh, bother!" said he, "if you must

know--why, I mistook the quarter-boats; I thought 'twas the _other_

I was in, when you kicked up that shindy! Now I remember, though,

there was too much _rain_ in it for comfort!" "Well, youngster,"

said Tom, the man-o'-war'sman, "this here gentleman saved your life,

anyhow!" "Why, mate," whispered Bill, "'tis the wery same greenhorn we

puckalowed so to-day! Didn't he jump sharp over, too?" "Pull! for your

lives, my lads!" said I, looking up at Ford's window; and the moment we

got on deck, below I ran into the state-room, and cut Ford down by the

heels, with the tinder hanging from him, and one leg of his trousers

half gone. As for the poor reefer, a pretty blowing-up he got; the men

swore I had jumped overboard after him, and the mate would have it

that, instead of sleeping, he wanted to get into the Judge's cabins;

especially when next day Sir Charles was in a rage at his daughter

being disturbed by some sailor or other singing outside.

[9] Sleeping on deck.

[10] Anglicè--_not_ sober.

FOR THE LAST PAGE OF "OUR ALBUM."

At length our pens must find repose!

With verse, or with poetic prose,

Filled is each nook;

And these poor little rhymes must close

Our pleasant book!

Its every page is filled at last!

When on these leaves my eyes I cast,

Dull thoughts to cheer,

How many memories of the past

Seem written here!

Those who behold a river run

Bright glittering in the noonday sun,

See not its source;

And few can know whence has begun

Its giddy course!

And thus the feelings that gave rise

To many a verse that meets their eyes

How few can tell!

Yet for those feelings gone, I prize

And love it well!

Some stanzas were composed to grace

An hour of pleasure,--some to chase

Sad care away;

And some to help on time's slow pace

Which would delay!

In some, we trace affection's tone

To friends then kind,--now colder grown

By force or art:

In some, the shade of hopes, now gone,

Then, next the heart!