Sleeping on your watch, find yourself suddenly called up to perform some part of your duty; when, lo! some wags have tied you hands and legs to a gun.

Sleeping to leeward late in the morning, find yourself swimming, the morning watch having commenced washing decks. Symptoms of anger would only increase the laugh at your expense.

In the ship in which I'sailed to India, a young midshipman was sleeping on his morning watch, on the leeward side. The officer on watch ordered the sailors to bring half-a-dozen buckets of water, and at a preconcerted signal the poor snoring middy was to get the contents. The signal was given, and souse went a couple of buckets; then two more. The officer sung out, "Tom, you are overboard; strike away." The little frightened fellow's hands and legs went the same as they would if he had been actually swimming, and it was some time before he could make up his mind that he was safe on board; more especially when some of them bellowed out," Throw him a rope-throw him a rope."

Showing your agility in ascending the ship's side, miss your footing, by which you have a most favourable opportunity of showing your swimming powers also.

Being anxious to land after a long voyage from India, trust your precious body in an open boat. A hurricane coming on, your little bark is driven out to sea, and you are obliged to seek refuge in an enemy's country. If you escape with life, you are fortunate indeed; but the loss of your long-collected treasures is inevitable.

Being obliged to sit next to a gentleman who is an intolerable taker of snuff, which is continually blowing into your eyes. To mend this annoyance, your snuff-loving neighbour gets drunk before the cloth is removed from the table, and then becomes so importunate for conversation, that he thrusts his snuffy proboscis into your face or, in his vehemence, upsets his snuff-box into your lap.

;

Quarrelling with the officers of the ship; in consequence of which, wherever you show your nose, you are sure of being soused and played all manner of tricks with by the crew, to the great amusement of the other pas

sengers.

Having refused to get up for the purpose of having the steerage washed, find yourself, when in a comfortable slumber, cut down by the head; by which you learn that your nob is not quite so hard as the deck, though, perhaps, thicker; and are taught, at the same time, the necessity of conforming to the rules of the ship.

Refusing to bring up your hammock from below, find, when you are going to turn in at night, that some scamp has emptied the tar-bucket into it, by which you have the felicity of having your bedding sticking to your back. No grumbling permitted.

Being monstrously beloved by the passengers, from your urbanity and complacency of manners, find that, as a token of their unalterable affection, they bribe sailors to play you all manner of tricks; such as tripping you up by a rope; tying your legs when asleep; dragging you from one side of the deck to the other; sousing you from the main-top, whenever you venture in its vicinity; putting grease on your chair, when you are about to seat yourself; filling your tea with salt; your cigar with gunpowder; your grog with jalap; your boots with water; your bed with tar; and five hundred other tricks. Therefore, as the society of a vessel is necessarily small, make yourself agreeable: if not, the above will be your fate.

Under the raging sun, inhaling from your port-hole the little breeze that sometimes condescends to visit you, and in those pensive moments committing to paper the occurrences of the voyage, when, all of a sudden, a squall comes on, and your effusions, desk and all, find their way into the briny deep, and you have the mortification of seeing them descending rapidly to Neptune's treasury.

During a storm, find your cot loose, which rolls from side to side, to the great terror of all the passengers, and to the great risk of your life; cannot,-dare not,-move; and, from the noise and bustle on deck, your shrill notes of fear pass unheeded, save by the frightened inmates be low, who hug their beds in alarm. Thus you are doomed, at the mercy of the billows, to roll from side to side, and from head to stern, at the expense of your ribs and head.

Considering yourself a connoisseur in the manufacture of spruce-beer, make twelve dozen, and invite your friends on board the ship to pay you a visit, to regale themselves on this cooling beverage the following day. In the middle of the night, however, find yourself awoke by a file firing which alarms the whole ship, and which, on examination, you find to proceed from the bursting of your delicious spruce, occasioned by the rolling of the vessel, and the heat of the lockers in which it had been deposited.

Being obliged to sit next to a person with whom you have quarrelled, and are to settle your little affair of honour on arriving at the first land.

Dancing down the middle with a fat Sodagah's wife, who, for the last twenty years, has been regaling on the delicacies of the East, and whom you are literally obliged to drag down the country dance. When poussetting, or swinging corners, the mischievous helmsman gives the ship a luff up, which brings the whole weight of the said fat Sodagah's wife upon your liverless side, to the no small amusement of the rest of the party, who laugh most heartily at the struggling and floundering of yourself and fat partner, to restore yourselves to a perpendicular position.

Showing your agility before the assembled passengers, by ascending the rigging, find your way down much quicker than you went up, by slipping from the ratlines, which have been recently tarred; by which fall you are minus some few inches of skin from your nose, hands, and shins, besides spoiling your new suit of clothes.

VOL. I.-11

As one of the pleasures of being a sound sleeper, find, when you awake in the morning, that you have been tied in your hammock, with your face towards the deck; in which state you are obliged to hang suspended till some kind friend relieves you.

:

Sitting, on a passage from India, next to your tailor or shoemaker, to whom you owe a long bill.

Being out-general'd, so that you are obliged to sit next to a right down West-Indian Black, who has but an intolerable spattering of your mother-tongue, but whom, sitting next to you, you are, as a matter of politeness, obliged to hand to and from table, and occasionally to lead down the merry dance; and who sometimes solicits you with such fascinating grins to accompany her in a duet, that you cannot, without offence, refuse.

Sitting opposite, or next to, a prodigious fat gentleman, or dame, who has a wheezing asthma.

Sitting opposite to a tawny and sun-burnt invalid, who is proceeding home with all the diseases incident to the climate of India, and who is so quarrelsome and peevish, that, in commiseration for his sufferings, you condescendingly agree with him on every subject, although in direct opposition to your own experience and judgment.

Playing whist with an invalid of this kind, who plays a card every half-hour; and, if you hurry him, is very likely to throw the whole pack at your head.

Making love on the poop early in the morning, and planning your schemes how to elude the vigilant eye of a parent, find, when your arrangements are finally settled, that your whole conversation has been overheard by "pa"," from the mizen-mast, behind which he had stolen unobserved. Miss is confined to her cabin, and you are obliged to sit next to the said pa' for the rest of the voyage.

Sitting between two foreigners, of whose language you do not understand a syllable; and who, from their violent gestures, appear to be laying deep plans for cutting your

throat.

CHAPTER X..

WE arrived in England some time in October, 1807. We landed at Long Reach, and proceeded to Dartford, in Kent, from whence I marched my invalids, or rather had them carried, to Chelsea Hospital,-a journey which I was three days in accomplishing. On the fourth day I reached the place of destination, and having made my report to the commandant of Chelsea, I returned to join the regiment at Dartford. Here we remained for about a week or ten days, receiving the greatest kindness from the gentlemen in that town and its vicinity. From thence the regiment was ordered to Nottingham, and I obtained leave of absence to proceed home.

My primary object in coming to England, was the hope of seeing my father; and I anxiously availed myself of the opportunity which now offered of revisiting my native village, full of anticipation of the pleasure with which I should relate my adventures to all who had formerly known me. The coach which was to convey me to the village of my birth, had not proceeded many miles, when a coincidence happened, which, though "true as holy writ," might be thought, without this assurance, to bear the marks of fiction. On the coach, next to me, sat a pilot from Aldborough, in Suffolk, who suddenly addressing himself to me, said, "I really cannot help thinking, sir, from your extraordinary resemblance to a person I once knew, that you are his son. The words, once knew,' turned my blood cold, and it was some minutes before I could muster courage to ask the name of the person to whom he referred. What was my astonishment, when he

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