Chapter Two.

My Adventures Commence.

On reaching Liverpool, the second port in Britain, the delight with which I wandered about the vast docks and quays, can be easily imagined. Here I found splendid ships—ships that were even giants to those I had so frequently built up in my imagination. As I gazed at their slender tapering masts and net-work of cordage, I despaired in my heart of ever being able to distinguish one of the myriad of ropes from another; but I did what it is the best to do in all cases—I determined to try.

It so happened that at the time of my arrival there was a demand for sailors before the mast, and with my knowledge of the sea it was not difficult for me to procure a berth. Thus on the third day I found myself enrolled as one of the crew of a splendid merchant ship—the Columbus, 2,500 tons, bound for Jamaica with full cargo.

So many accounts have been written of sailor’s first voyages and experiences that I shall pass over mine; they proved very uneventful till seven years had nearly elapsed, during which period I had made many visits home, bringing numerous curiosities for Katie, who now was my wife, and had one or two little sailors in embryo to console her during my absence.

Ten years then do I skip over, and come to the time when I shipped on board the Lively Ariel, merchantman, bound for Madras.

As it was the first time I had been in this part of the globe, I was no little delighted at the change, and promised Katie many Indian rarities, such as ivory work-boxes, etc—little dreaming what a long, long voyage I was about to take, and the vastly different things I should bring her to those I intended.

But a merciful Providence kindly hides the future from us, for the knowledge would make cowards of us all; therefore, ignorant of what was to come, I bade her an affectionate farewell, tossed the crowing babies in my arms, and started on the longest voyage I ever made.

It was a light favourable breeze with which we cleared out of the Mersey, and went down Saint George’s Channel, all sails set, and the ship flying, gliding along, over the blue waves, like a perfect beauty as she was.

With the wind thus in our favour, it was not long before we had lost sight of Cardigan Bay, passed the Scilly Islands, and entered the ocean, the broad Atlantic. We had long passed the Cape Verde Isles, which derive their names from being covered with quantities of Adansonia or baobab trees, whose stems are at times 34 feet in circumference, though they rarely exceed 60 feet in height. These trees so cover the sandy plains of the above-mentioned Islands with their umbrella-shaped tops, that approaching them they present the appearance of one vast field of green verdure. We had long passed them I say before the weather at all changed, then but for a brief space, as we had scarcely crossed the line, before the wind again chopped round to north, and so continued till we reached the Cape of Good Hope, sighting the Table Rock, and the misty cloud hanging above—its tablecloth, as it has been termed—about six a.m. Here we stayed to take in water, of which we were growing scarce, and afterwards proceeded on our course, bringing as it seemed the wind with us, for it speedily veered due south.

It was about the middle watch, which was mine, of the second night that, leaning over the side of the ship, I looked into the dark depths of ocean, and above at the splendid blue sky—a blue only to be seen in the southern hemisphere—studded with stars like gems of immense magnitude. I was looking, I repeat, upon these wondrous beauties of nature, and thinking of Katie and the little ones at home, when my reverie, which had been running as smoothly as the ship glided over the billows, was broken by the voice of Tom Grimes, the boatswain, who, coming up, and leaning over the side like myself, said, as he turned a