CAPTAIN COMES ON BOARD.

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passengers, spacious and elegant, my wretched crib forming the very bathos to these accommodations. The quarter deck, that part of the upper deck abaft the mainmast, was separated from the waist, or that portion of the deck forward of the mainmast, by a strong barricade, the quarter deck being allotted for the crew, the waist for the prisoners, and the poop for the officers, &c. The soldiers of the guard were lodged in my fashionable locale, their bunks being arranged similar to those destined for the prisoners. For the breadth of the vessel in that part (a fact I could not at first distinguish) was divided by a stout bulkhead, and what I took to be the side of the vessel, afterexperience showed me was only a separating partition.

The captain, with his wife and her sister, and the surgeon, joined us at Spithead, and a major, a lieutenant, and an ensign came on board as officers commanding the guard: these formed the élite company of the vessel. Every thing being now in readiness, our cargo of convicted sin was brought alongside in launches, each individual member being clad in an uniform of pepper and salt of the most rigid economic cut, their brows being surmounted by woollen caps corresponding in style to the rest of their dress. One leg was also embraced by an anklet of iron supporting a chain of the same precious metal carried up to the waist. I expected to have encountered an ill-looking set of scoundrels, with ferocity depicted under every guise; but the motley group that scrambled up the sides were a hale, hearty, freshlooking set of fellows, humble and submissive as

lambs: there were no men above the middle age amongst them, although I observed two or three complete boys. We had mechanics of all trades, tailors, shoemakers, butchers, weavers, carpenters, blacksmiths, whitesmiths, locksmiths, tinsmiths, cabinet-makers, workers in brass and gold, engravers, bakers, pastry cooks, farmers, miners, itinerant musicians, glee singers, strollers, and gipseys; and, with reluctance be it spoken, in the list I must include two solicitors and two master mariners.

The sun had dipped below the horizon, when the last of our 310 manacled specimens of zoology was tallied in board, and there was something painfully humiliating in the spectacle of so many human beings huddled together like a flock of sheep: they moved in the same helpless mass at the word of command, just as the said sheep would at the bark of the shepherd's dog; and notwithstanding they had been guilty of crimes which had brought their own punishment, I felt my sympathies strongly enlisted in behalf of the poor fellows, and for a while forgot my own troubles in commiserating theirs.

CHAP. II.

Get under Weigh. -Put into the Boatswain's Mess.-The Messplace and its Members.—Blue Water and a Watch.— Symptoms of Opposition to Imposition.- A boxing Bout.Prisoners unmanacled. —Night Phenomena.-Steward's Bewilderment: Ghost Stories do not relieve it.- A Second Tom Tucker. The Captain imparts a Knowledge of the " Royal Brace." Chinese Drawings lead to a Threat of exhibiting the Pictures. — Cape de Verde and Tristan de Cunha. Gale to the southward of the Cape of Good Hope. — A Discovery: the Cook's Galley a better Night Station than the Quarter Deck.-A Growl with Chips. How to hail the Watch. Pass through Bass's Straits. First Glimpse at Savage Life.

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"Adieu! adieu! my native shore

Fades o'er the waters blue;

The night winds sigh, the breakers roar,
And shrieks the wild seamew.

Yon sun that sinks upon the sea,
We follow in his flight;

Farewell awhile to him and thee,

My native land, Good night."

Away the good ship flies, and leaves old England on our lee."

March 7th.-HITHERTO I have not been particular as to the day of the month, but this was the memorable date of our leaving Old England's shores. What a melancholy sound that heaving at the capstan had! the jarring and grating of the cable as it came slowly in at the hawse holes had a similar effect upon my nerves; and with every clank of the chain as they

dragged it along the deck, my hold upon my country seemed dwindling away. But I hadn't long for the indulgence of sorrowful fancies. The talent of one of the itinerant musicians was put in requisition; seated upon the capstan head, with a shrill fife he struck up a lively air, and away we gyrated with the capstan bars spinning round and round with a "stamp and go," keeping time to the measure: the anchor was aweigh, the wind was fair, and I soon took my farewell gaze at Britain.

We were scarcely fairly at sea, when the captain, for the second time since I had been on board, accosted me. "Agreeably to my promise," said he, "I have stationed you in the boatswain's mess: I think you will be more comfortable there than in the third mate's, and you will have a boy to wait upon you." I bowed my acknowledgments, and as he was a man of few words, this second interview terminated. The mess I was appointed to consisted of the boatswain, the carpenter, the sail-maker, the ship's steward, two apprentices, and myself, and the place where we held our daily symposiums is worthy of description. Chock aft, that is, as far in the stern of the vessel as you could possibly get, separated from the common 'tween-deck berth by a bulkhead, was a triangular nook, impervious to daylight or fresh air; two bunks occupied one of its angular sides, and four hammocks hung suspended cheek by jowl, which were triced close up to the deck overhead when not in use. The scene was illumined night and day by one of the sputtering train oil lamps I have described, and the lights at Mahomet's tomb in the cave at Mecca were

not more carefully attended to as regards their extinguishment, than was our solitary noxious illuminator; but whether this attention was inspired by devotion or by fear of the boatswain's fist, let others determine. The carpenter's tool-chest formed the dining-table, the sail-maker from his stores of old canvass furnished us tablecloths, and the chests of the sleeping inmates of this earthly elysium, secured by cleets to the deck, formed the banqueting-seats. Our dinner service, which also served us for breakfast and supper, consisted of a pannikin, a tin-plate, a tinned iron spoon, and a knife and fork for each individual. I made no pretensions to superior notions of gentility, but, bearing in mind the old adage, carefully did at Rome what the people at Rome do. It was the duty of the boys to look after the table gear, and to keep the den clean; and I have often been not a little amused at witnessing the younger of the two, a brat under twelve years of age, clear a way for himself from the cook's galley, by shouting out "scaldings, scaldings," although he might be carrying nothing of a more burning character than the plates and pannikins he had just been submitting to the act of purification. And now let me speak of my messmates. The boatswain was esteemed a first-rate seaman, a man of about five feet eight in height, but with limbs and a breadth and depth of chest that could well have supported an additional foot in altitude. His head was massive as his body, but round as a bullet, thickly covered with coal-black hair, inclined to curly: he had a frank manly look, which did not belie his character, and a mouth furnished