20

DEPARTURE FROM ENGLAND.

shut myself up in my cabin, I was disturbed by the moanings and complaints of my neighbours ; and if I went on deck every body seemed to think me in the way. The sailors were scarcely recovered from the drunkenness in which their last few days on shore had been spent. All was bustle and disorder. Nothing seemed to be in its right place, and it was with some difficulty I pushed my way to the poop, which was the only place in the ship not occupied by dirty half-drunken sailors in noisy debate,―ropes in indescribable confusion,-trusses of hay,—hencoops, pigs, sheep, and passengers' luggage.

ever.

Never until now had I thought seriously of the home and friends I was leaving-perhaps for I leant over the taffrail, and as I watched the glimmering lights on shore, from which we were fast departing, and listened to the moaning of the wind, and the dashing of the waves under the counter, I contrasted the cheerful fire, and my own snug room in my father's house, with the dreary sea prospect, the comfortless cabin, and monotonous imprisonment which awaited me here. How I longed for one look at the book of futurity!-what was to be my fortune in the far country to which I was going! and how many of those dear friends to whom I had so lately bid adieu, and whose kindness since my earliest remem

AMUSEMENTS AT SEA.

21

brance now rose in review before me, and forced itself on my recollection,-might I have seen for the last time! The glad tones of welcome with which they would have hailed my return to my native land would be perhaps, ere then, hushed in the silence of the tomb!

A few days of fine weather completely altered the face of things. Those who had been sick crawled out of their cabins, and seemed to recover their health and spirits almost by magic, and we now began to find out something of each other's characters. Some of the passengers were very agreeable people, and seemed by their sociability desirous of making the time we were to be together, hang as lightly as possible on our hands. Others, as is always the case, were inclined to make themselves particularly disagreeable and were disposed to quarrel with everybody. These we soon sent to Coventry, and they formed a party of themselves, and tormented each other the whole voyage. We invented a variety of means to enliven the tedium to which we were exposed— got up a weekly paper, and acted plays, the ladies assisting the latter by manufacturing the dresses, and wigs.

In spite of all these contrivances, however, the time passed slowly enough, and we found our literal friend, the master, not quite the sort of

22

STORY OF A SHARK.

person he had represented himself. The table was kept in the most stingy and niggardly manner, and the wines were execrable.

Sometimes we used to catch a shark, or harpoon a dolphin, as he played under the bows; a good deal of fun took place in overhauling the locker of the foremost fish, as the sailors call searching out what he has in his stomach. We found all sorts of odd things that had been dropped from the ship days before. There is no doubt that these voracious sea monsters will follow a vessel hundreds of miles on her voyage. The sailors believe that when any person is sick on board they never leave it, knowing from a peculiar instinct, when the malady will prove fatal, and the body be thrown overboard. The truth of this I do not vouch for; but the sailors will enforce their narratives with many examples which are startling, if true. I heard a story which is curious, and I do not think unlikely. The narrator once sailed on board a ship, he said, in which there was a very near-sighted passenger who always wore a pair of gold spectacles. He had forgotten to provide himself with a second pair, before he left, and being a man of nervous temperament, he was perpetually worrying himself with the idea that by some accident or other he should lose the only ones he had during the

STORY OF A SHARK.

23

voyage, and thus be left for some time in a most unpleasant predicament, not being able to see a yard before him without the assistance of glasses. Many and dire were the accidents which he was sure would happen to him in the state of semiblindness to which he would be reduced, when the barnacles were gone. In fact, he would be afraid to venture on deck, being certain to walk over-board, or fall down the companion-ladder; and how he should ever get into the boat which was to take him on shore, when the ship arrived at her destination, he knew not.

One day they were becalmed near the line, and a large shark was seen by the officer on watch just under the stern. All the passengers, our nearsighted friend among them, rushed aft to see the monster taken, a baited hook having been immediately put over-board. In the scuffle which took place, every one striving to get a good position, down dropped the spectacles from his nose; the shark seized the glittering prize, and as if satisfied with his acquisition retired under the counter refusing the most tempting baits that were successively offered him during the day. Towards evening a breeze sprung up and away they went at nine or ten knots an hour. The nervous man was now in the situation which his morbid fancy had so often presented to him, and the first part of his pre

24

STORY OF A SHARK.

sentiment having come to pass, he felt like a doomed man, and seemed to await the fulfilment of his destiny, which, he had persuaded himself, was either to break his neck, or be drowned. He locked himself up in his cabin, became moody and reserved, and busied himself with arranging his papers, and making various preparations for his end. The captain, and others became seriously alarmed, and attempted to rally him from this monomania, but all to no purpose; he shook his head mournfully when they attempted to laugh him out of it, and solemnly made answer, that time would show he was a doomed man.

The wind about the line seldom lasts long, and after five or six days' fair sailing during which they ran eight or nine hundred miles, the favourable brǝeze died away,-the heavy sails again idly flapped against the masts,-and again the usual listlessness which attends a perfect calm at sea crept over the minds of every one on board. One of the midshipmen who had gone aloft to see if he could descry a sail or any thing else on the vast expanse of water, on which they lay like a log, sang out, that a shark was close to the vessel. Again every body was on the qui vive, a hook was soon baited and thrown over, and this time greedily snatched at by John Shark. He was soon hauled on board, and the business of search