grasped the musket by the muzzle from the weak acts of one of the puny troop, and, with a deepmuttered imprecation of, "By the Eternal, let her rip," gave the weapon a half sweep over his head; aid bringing it round, the foremost men went down like grain before a sickle. Recovering himself again, he made the heavy piece whirl on high, and brought it, for the second time, upon the backs of the panicstricken soldiers; but the flint-lock catching some part of their equipments, the cock snapped, the piece flashed, held fire an instant, and then exploded full in the face of the Yankee. The charge traversed his upper jaw, nose, and one eye, leaving him blinded, and the blackened blood and powder clinging to his mutilated features. He spun round nearly a turn, by the force of the explosion, yet never relaxed his gripe on the muzzle of the musket, until, with a confused lurch, the breech of the gun touched the sand, and he fell forward with all his weight. The point of the bayonet entered nearly at his breast bone, and transfixed him to the pipe. He fell over sideways, and lay a dead man, deluging in blood the sacks of money he had made such desperate efforts to defend.

By this time the dismayed soldiers, who had turned tail from the one man, began to fire an irregular feu de joie right in amongst the crowd of us. They were too wild, however, to do much damage; only grazing the ear of one of the factors, and putting a ball into the foot of the Maltese-and a very severe and painful wound he found it.

During this skrimmage my attention was for a moment diverted from my own especial game; and when I looked again, I saw the hag running like a rat towards the thicket. Makeen fired his pistol at her, but the ball only cut off a twig, and scattered some leaves without touching her. I reserved my shot, and, with a cry that brought the whole assembly, with the exception of the soldiers, we plunged after Mag. She took the main road, a well-beaten track for mules and beasts, which led from the mouth of the river to the city; and though it wound about here and there, we could still keep her in sight, as she parted the bushes right and left in her flight. Presently, the thick undergrowth gave place to loftier vegetation; and between the trunks of the palms and cocoas we caught glimpses of narrow lagoons beyond, patched with light-green and white water lilies. On the opposite side, the land rose higher, and the forest was composed of heavy timber..

The woman still held on with great speed, and must have known she was running with a noose round her neck, for she never looked behind, or gave heed in the slightest degree to our yells to stop or be shot. There were a number of paths made by cattle, which crossed the road at intervals, and, all at once, Mag turned to the left into one of them. A pair of huge vampire bats rose from a branch with a boding eroak; and as the woman leaped over the grass and leaves, one of the factors gave a shout of warning, and tried to stop me from going farther. Shaking off his grasp, however, I jumped on, with Mak and Hazy at my heels, into the thicket. In a minute we had entirely passed the dense foliage, and before us lay the long, narrow lagoon, cradled in its black, slimy, muddy banks, while directly through the centre, leading to the opposite shore, was apparently a clear, open bridge, matted and bound with roots, grasses, and rank vegetation of all sorts, with a little clump of bushes and parasitical plants at every few paces, but still showing a green, even road over the water. Mag was about a hundred yards in advance of us, and splashing a short distance into the mud and water, she sprang upon the bending mangrove roots,

and, finding that they bore her weight, continued on her course.

Hold!" roared the padron; "gentlemen, for God's sake don't go an inch farther!"

"O! cuidado!" screamed the factor. "Beware! it is certain death!" cried they, both out of breath. "That witch can't escape; the mire will prevent her on the other side."

At this moment, Mag, perceiving she was no longer pursued, turned about, and shaking her knife in one hand, and applying the gin jug to her lips with the other, she took a long pull, and then yelled derisively,

"O, you hounds! you thought to hang me, eh? the hemp isn't planted yet for my throat; and you, ye devil's asp, let me once lay hold upon you, I'll take an oath to find your heart the next time. Adios," she said, as she again applied the jug to her mouth, and hurling it upon the slimy surface of the pool, wheeled to resume her flight.

I am glad to say that this was the last swig of gin and the last intelligible remarks which Miss Margaret, as Spuke respectfully styled her, ever uttered in this world.

No sooner had the water been disturbed by the splash of the empty bottle, than we noticed a little succession of rolling, unbroken billows along by the vegetable bridge. The flat, sickly leaves and flowers began to undulate, and as Mag stepped from the green laced, living fabric to a projecting root, we saw the huge, triangular-shaped snout of a red spectacled alligator, and the dull, protruding eyes, with the fringed, scaly crest between, slowly pushed above the water; and then a sharp, rattling snap upon the hard-baked clay of the gin jug.

66

The cayman!" exclaimed the padron; and as the monster rolled his jaws more out of water, the irregular, reddish, marbled yellow and green spots were visible underneath, before he sank with his prize.

The factor ejaculated, "O! vermelho cayman !"

The noise of the breaking gin vessel did not, however, distract the attention of Mag, but as she trod on the elastic mass of the bridge, it yielded, and agitated the pool with a loud splash. The next moment, as if the impulse had been felt in every direction, the same unbroken undulations as before swelled up under the greenish, stagnant lagoon, and in less time than it takes to wink, the water broke with a rush upwards, within a few feet of the woman. The enormous mail-clad hide of the cayman appeared; the tail rose with a diagonal motion; and the head, with the distended, serrated jaws, the reddish tongue and yellow mouth inside them, gleamed hot and dry in the beams of the morning sun; the whole monster forming a curving bend of full twenty feet before and behind the now terrified hag. At the same instant the hard, flexible tail made a side sweep, quick as thought, which, striking Mag a crushing blow about her waist, doubled her up with a broken back, and she was swept into the frightful jaws, open to full stretch, and inclined sideways to receive the prey. Simultaneously with our groans of horror, the heretofore quiet pool was all alive with the projecting, ridgy bodies of the monsters, and for a few minutes we heard nothing but the violent snapping of their huge jaws, and the blows of their powerful tails. At last the water once more began to settle down into peace; the broad, flat leaves and stems of the pure white lilies, which had been torn and crushed by the commotion amongst the denizens below, gradually resumed their beds; and, save a few bubbles, and an occasional undulation, with a strong odor of musk, there was nothing left to show where the hag had met her horrid death.

on.

"And I settled down stiddy at the lobster business. Nat Pochick and me was 'prentices in a smack for better nor five years, in war times too, until our time was out, when we bought the old smack at a bargain, and drove a lively trade in the same business. We used to take the lobsters, where the best on 'em comes from, along the moniment shore, down about Plymouth, and we ran 'em through the Vineyard Sound to York, by way of Montauk. Well, one day, when we had the well of the schooner as full as ever it could stick with claws and feelers, like darned fools we tried to shorten the distance by runnin' outside of Nantucket, but jest as we got off Skonset, what should we see but the old Ramillies seventy-four, the admiral's ship, a-hidin' under Tom Nevers' Head; and in less than a minute an eighteen pound shot come spinnin' across our bows, and two big double-banked boats was making the water white as they pulled towards us. We know'd, as well as could be, that them Britishers didn't want the old smack, nor care a snap for the lobsters; but we did believe sartin' that they wouldn't mind clappin' hold on two sich likely chaps as my partner and me, to sarve under the king's flag. So we up helm and ran the smack and the cargo slap on to the Old Man's Shoal; but jest afore she struck we jumped into the yawl, and paddled to the beach, where we saved being captured. Well, the smack was knocked into splinters by the breakers in less than an hour. Now, my hearties," said the whaler, as he paused and gazed around the group of listeners, "every blessid one of them lobsters went back to the ground where they was took, as much as a hundred miles from the reef where the old craft was wracked! and there's great Black Dan, of Marsfield, will tell ye the same; for ye must bear in mind, that every fisherman has his partiklar shaped pegs to chock the claws of the lobsters with, and every one of our lobsters was kitched agin with our 'dentical pegs in 'em! This, boys, was the last trip as ever we made in that trade, though Nat Pochick, out of fondness for the things, established himself on the old Boston bridge, where he is to this day, a-bilin', may be, five or six thousand lobsters of a mornin', which he sells off like hot cakes in the arternoons."

HERMAN MELVILLE.

HERMAN MELVILLE was born in the city of New York, August 1, 1819. On his father's side he is of Scotch extraction, and is descended in the fourth degree from Thomas Melville, a clergyman of the Scotch Kirk, who, from the year 1718 and for almost half a century, was minister

of Scoonie parish, Leven, Fifeshire.* The minis ter of Scoonie had two sons-John Melville, who became a member of his majesty's council in Grenada, and Allan Melville, who came to America in 1748, and settled in Boston as a merchant. Dy. ing young, the latter left an only son, Thomas Melville, our author's grandfather, who was born in Boston, and, as appears by the probate records on the appointment of his guardian in 1761, inherited a handsome fortune from his father. He was graduated at Princeton College, New Jersey in 1769, and in 1772 visited his relatives in Scotland. During this visit he was presented with the freedom of the city of St. Andrews and of Renfrew. He returned to Boston in 1773, where he became a merchant, and in December of that year was one of the Boston Tea Party. He took an active part in the Revolutionary war, and, as major in Craft's regiment of Massachusetts artillery, was in the actions in Rhode Island in 1776. Commissioned by Washington in 1789 as naval officer of the port of Boston, he was continued by all the presidents down to Jackson's time in 1829. To the time of his death Major Melville continued to wear the antiquated three-cornered hat, and from this habit was familiarly known in Boston as the last of the cocked-hats. There is still preserved a small parcel of the veritable tes in the attack upon which he took an active part. Being found in his shoes on returning from the vessel it was sealed up in a vial, although it was intended that not a particle should escape destruction! The vial and contents are now in possession of Chief-Justice Shaw of Massachusetts.

Our author's father, Allan Melville, was an importing merchant in New York, and made frequent visits to Europe in connexion with his business. He was a well educated and polished man, and spoke French like a native.

On his mother's side Mr. Melville is the grandson of General Peter Gansevoort of Albany, New York, the "hero of Fort Stanwix," having successfully defended that fort in 1777 against a large force of British and Indians, commanded by General St. Leger.

Naman Mululll

The boyhood of Herman Melville was passed at Albany and Lansingburgh, New York, and in the country, at Berkshire, Massachusetts. He had early shown a taste for literature and composition.

In his eighteenth year he shipped as a sailor in a New York vessel for Liverpool, made a hurried

* Article Scoonie, Sinclair's Statistical Account of Scotland, vol. v. p. 115. Dr. George Brewster, minister of Scoonie, who died June 20, 1855, succeeded the Rev. David Swan, who was the successor of our author's ancestor. It is worthy of remark that the united years of these three clergymen, in the same desk, was one hundred and thirty-six years.-Obituary notice in Scotsman, June 23, 1855.

+ Major Melville was the nearest surviving male relative of General Robert Melville, who was descended from a brother of the minister of Scoonie, the first and only Captain-General and Governor-in-chief of the Islands ceded to England by France in 1763, and at the time of his death, which occurred in 1809, was with one exception the oldest General in the British army.County Annual Register, Scotland, 1809 and 10, vol. i part 6. In the genealogy of General Melville. contained in Douglass's Baronage of Scotland, published in 1798, the Boston family are stated to be descended from the same branch of the Melville family as General Melville.

visit to London when he arrrived in port, and returned home "before the mast." His next adventure was embarking, Jan. 1, 1841, on a whaling vessel for the Pacific for the sperm fishery. After eighteen months of the cruise, the vessel, in the summer of 1842, put into the Marquesas, at Nukuheva. Melville, who was weary of the service, took the opportunity to abandon the ship, and with a fellow sailor hid himself in the forest, with the intention of resorting to a neighboring peaceful tribe of the natives. They mistook their course, and after three days' wandering, in which they had traversed one of the formidable mountain ridges of the island, found themselves in the barbarous Typee valley. Here Melville was detained "in an indulgent captivity " for four months. He was separated from his companion, and began to despair of a return to civilization, when he was rescued one day on the shore by a boat's crew of a Sidney whaler. He shipped on board this vessel, and was landed at Tahiti the day when the French took possession of the Society Islands, establishing their "Protectorate at the cannon's mouth. From Tahiti, Melville passed to the Sandwich Islands, spent a few months in observation of the people and the country, and in the autumn of 1813 shipped at Honolulu as ordinary seaman on board the frigate United States, then on its return voyage, which was safely accomplished, stopping at Callao, and reaching Boston in October, 1844. This voyaging in the merchant, whaling, and naval service rounded Melville's triple experience of nautical life. It was not long after that he made his appearance as an author. His first book, Typee, a narrative of his Marquesas adventure, was published in 1846, simultaneously by Murray in London* and Wiley and Putnam in New York. The spirit and vigorous fancy of the style, and the freshness and novelty of the incidents, were at once appreciated. There was, too, at the time, that undefined sentiment of the approaching practical importance of the Pacific in the public mind, which was admirably calculated for the reception of this glowing, picturesque narrative. It was received everywhere with enthusiasm, and made a reputation for its author in a day. The London Times reviewed it with a full pen, and even the staid Gentleman's Magazine was loud in its praises.

66

Mr. Melville followed up this success the next year with Onoo, a Narrative of Adventures in the South Seas, which takes up the story with the escape from the Typees, and gives a humorous account of the adventures of the author and some

of his ship companions in Tahiti. For pleasant, easy narrative, it is the most natural and agreeable of his books. In his next book, in 1849Mardi, and a Voyage Thither-the author ventured out of the range of personal observation and matter-of-fact description to which he had kept more closely than was generally supposed,† and

It was brought to the notice of Mr. Murray in London by Mr. Gansevoort Melville, then Secretary of Legation to the Minister, Mr. Louis McLane. Mr. Gansevoort Melville was a political speaker of talent. He died suddenly in London of an attack of fever in May, 1846.

Lt. Wise, in his lively, dashing book of travels-An Inside View of Mexico and California, with Wanderings in Peru, Chili, and Polynesia-pays a compliment to Melville's fidelity: VOL. II.--43

Critics

projected a philosophical romance, in which human nature and European civilization were to be typified under the aspects of the poetical mythological notions and romantic customs and traditions of the aggregate races of Polynesia. In the first half of the book there are some of the author's best descriptions, wrought up with fanciful associations from the quaint philosophic and other reading in the volumes of Sir Thomas Browne, and such worthies, upon whose pages, after his long sea fast from books and literature, the author had thrown himself with eager avidity. In the latter portions, embarrassed by his spiritual allegories, he wanders without chart or compass in the wildest regions of doubt and scepticism. Though, as a work of fiction, lacking clearness, and maimed as a book of thought and speculation by its want of sobriety, it has many delicate traits and fine bursts of fancy and invention. could find many beauties in Mardi which the novel-reading public who long for amusement have not the time or philosophy to discover. Mr. Melville, who throughout his literary career has had the good sense never to argue with the public, whatever opportunities he might afford them for the exercise of their disputative faculties, lost no time in recovering his position by a return to the agreeable narrative which had first gained him his laurels. In the same year he published Redburn; his First Voyage, being the Sailor-boy Confessions and Reminiscences of the Son of a Gentleman, in the Merchant Service. In the simplicity of the young sailor, of which the pleasant adventure of leaving the forecastle one day and paying his respects to the captain in the cabin, is an instance, this book is a witty reproduction of natural incidents. The lurid London episode, in the melo-dramatic style, is not so fortunate. Another course of Melville's nautical career, the United States naval service, furnished the subject of the next book-White Jacket, or the World in a Man-of-war, published in 1850. It is a vivid daguerreotype of the whole life of the ship. The description is everywhere elevated from commonplace and familiarity by the poetical associations which run through it. There is many a good word spoken in this book, as in the author's other writings, for the honor and welfare of Poor Jack. Punishment by flogging is unsparingly condemned.

In 1851 Moby-Dick, or the Whale, appeared, the most dramatic and imaginative of Melville's books. In the character of Captain Ahab and his contest with the whale, he has opposed the metaphysical energy of despair to the physical sublime of the ocean. In this encounter the whale becomes a representative of moral evil in the world. In the purely descriptive passages, the details of the fishery, and the natural history of the animal, are narrated with constant brilliancy of illustration from the fertile mind of the author.*

"Apart from the innate beauty and charming tone of his narratives, the delineations of island life and scenery, from my own personal observation, are most correctly and faithfully

drawn."

Just at the time of publication of this book its catastrophe, the attack of the ship by the whale, which had already good historic warrant in the fate of the Essex of Nantucket, was still further supported by the newspaper narrative of the Ann Alexander of New Bedford, in which the infuriated animal demonstrated a spirit of revenge almost human, in

Pierre, or the Ambiguities, was published in 1852. Its conception and execution were both literary mistakes. The author was off the track of his true genius. The passion which he sought to evolve was morbid or unreal, in the worst school of the mixed French and German melodramatic.

Since the publication of this volume, Mr. Melville has written chiefly for the magazines of Harper and Putnam. In the former, a sketch, entitled Cock-a-doodle doo! is one of the most lively and animated productions of his pen; in the latter, his Bartleby the Scrivener, a quaint, fanciful portrait, and his reproduction, with various inventions and additions, of the adventures of Israel Potter, an actual character of the Revolution, have met with deserved success.

Melville's Residence.

Mr. Melville having been married in 1847 to a daughter of Chief Justice Shaw of Boston, resided for a while at New York, when he took up his residence in Berkshire, on a finely situated farm, adjacent to the old Melville House, in which some members of the family formerly lived; where, in the immediate vicinity of the residence of the poet Holmes, he overlooks the town of Pittsfield and the intermediate territory, flanked by the Taconic range, to the huge height of Saddleback.

Gray-lock, cloud girdled, from his purple throne,
A voice of welcome sends,

And from green sunny fields, a warbling tone
The Housatonic blends.†

In the fields and in his study, looking out upon the mountains, and in the hearty society of his family and friends, he finds congenial nourishment for his faculties, without looking much to cities, or troubling himself with the exactions of artificial life. In this comparative retirement will be found the secret of much of the speculative character engrafted upon his writings.

REDBURN CONTEMPLATES MAKING A SOCIAL CALL ON THE CAPTAIN IN HIS CABIN.

What reminded me most forcibly of my ignominious condition was the widely altered manner of

turning upon, pursuing, and destroying the vessel from which he had been attacked.

"The Life and Adventures of Israel R. Potter (a native of Cranston, Rhode Island), who was a soldier in the American Revolution," were published in a small volume at Providence, in 1824. The story in this book was written from the narrative of Potter, by Mr. Henry Trumbull, of Hartford, Ct.

t Ode for the Berkshire Jubilee, by Fanny Kemble Butler.

the captain toward me. I had thought him a fine, funny gentleman, full of mirth and good humor, and good will to seamen, and one who could not fail to appreciate the difference between me and the rude sailors among whom I was thrown. Indeed I had made no doubt that he would in some special mauner take me under his protection, and prove a kind friend and benefactor to me; as I had heard that some sea-captains are fathers to their crew; and so they are; but such fathers as Solomon's precepts tend to make-severe and chastising fathers; fathers whose sense of duty overcomes the sense of love, and who every day, in some sort, play the part of Brutus, who ordered his son away to execution, as I have read in our old family Plutarch.

Yes, I thought that Captain Riga, for Riga was his name, would be attentive and considerate to me, and strive to cheer me up, and comfort me in my lonesomeness. I did not even deem it at all impossible that he would invite me down to the cabin of a pleasant night, to ask me questions concerning my parents, and prospects in life; besides obtaining from me some anecdotes touching my great-uncle, the illustrious senator; or give me a slate and pencil, and teach me problems in navigation; or perhaps engage me at a game of chess. I even thought he might invite me to dinner on a sunny Sunday, and help me plentifully to the nice cabin fare, as knowing how distasteful the salt beef and pork, and hard biscuit of the forecastle must at first be to a boy like me, who had always lived ashore, and at home.

And I could not help regarding him with peculiar emotions, almost of tenderness and love, as the last visible link in the chain of associations which bound me to my home. For, while yet in port, I had seen him and Mr. Jones, my brother's friend, standing together and conversing: so that from the captain to my brother there was but one intermediate step, and my brother and mother and sisters

were one.

And this reminds me how often I used to pass by the places on deck, where I remembered Mr. Jones had stood when he first visited the ship lying at the wharf; and how I tried to convince myself that it was indeed true, that he had stood there, though now the ship was so far away on the wide Atlantic Ocean, and he, perhaps, was walking down Wallstreet, or sitting reading the newspaper in his counting-room, while poor I was so differently employed.

When two or three days had passed without the captain's speaking to me in any way, or sending word into the forecastle that he wished me to drop into the cabin to pay my respects, I began to think whether I should not make the first advances, and whether indeed he did not expect it of me, since I was but a boy, and he a man; and perhaps that might have been the reason why he had not spoken to me yet, deeming it more proper and respectful for me to address him first. I thought he might be offended, too, especially if he were a proud man, with tender feelings. So one evening, a little before sundown, in the second dog-watch, when there was no more work to be done, I concluded to call and see him.

After drawing a bucket of water, and having a good washing, to get off some of the chicken-coop stains, I went down into the forecastle to dress myself as neatly as I could. I put on a white shirt in place of my red one, and got into a pair of cloth trowsers instead of my duck ones, and put on my new pumps, and then carefully brushing my shooting-jacket, I put that on over all, so that upon the whole I made quite a genteel figure, at least for a

forecastle, though I would not have looked so well in a drawing-room.

When the sailors saw me thus employed, they did not know what to make of it, and wanted to know whether I was dressing to go ashore; I told them no, for we were then out of sight of land; but that I was going to pay my respects to the captain. Upon which they all laughed and shouted, as if I were a simpleton; though there seemed nothing so very simple in going to make an evening call upon a friend. Then some of them tried to dissuade me, saying I was green and raw; but Jackson, who sat looking on, cried out, with a hideous grin, "Let him go, let him go, men-he's a nice boy. Let him go; the captain has some nuts and raisins for him." And so he was going on when one of his violent fits of coughing seized him, and he almost choked.

As I was about leaving the forecastle, I happened to look at my hands, and seeing them stained all over of a deep yellow, for that morning the mate had set me to tarring some strips of canvas for the rigging, I thought it would never do to present myself before a gentleman that way; so for want of kids I slipped on a pair of woollen mittens, which my mother had knit for me to carry to sea. was putting them on, Jackson asked me whether he shouldn't call a carriage; and another bade me not to forget to present his best respects to the skipper. I left them all tittering, and coming on deck was passing the cook-house, when the old cook called after me, saying, I had forgot my cane.

As I

I

But I did not heed their impudence, and was walking straight toward the cabin-door, on the quarter-deck, when the chief mate met me. touched my hat, and was passing him, when, after staring at me till I thought his eyes would burst out, he all at once caught me by the collar, and with a voice of thunder wanted to know what I meant by playing such tricks aboard a ship that he was mate of? I told him to let go of me, or I would complain to my friend the captain, whom I intended to visit that evening. Upon this he gave me such a whirl round, that I thought the Gulf Stream was in my head, and then shoved me forward, roaring out I know not what. Meanwhile the sailors were all standing round the windlass looking aft, mightily tickled.

Seeing I could not effect my object that night, I thought it best to defer it for the present; and returning among the sailors, Jackson asked me how I had found the captain, and whether the next time I went I would not take a friend along and introduce him.

The upshot of this business was, that before I went to sleep that night, I felt well satisfied that it was not customary for sailors to call on the captain in the cabin; and I began to have an inkling of the fact, that I had acted like a fool; but it all arose from my ignorance of sea usages.

And here I may as well state, that I never saw the inside of the cabin during the whole interval that elapsed from our sailing till our return to New York; though I often used to get a peep at it through a little pane of glass, set in the house on deck, just before the helm, where a watch was kept hanging for the helmsman to strike the half hours by, with his little bell in the binnacle, where the compass was. And it used to be the great amusement of the sailors to look in through the pane of glass, when they stood at the wheel, and watch the proceedings in the cabin; especially when the steward was setting the table for dinner, or the captain was lounging over a decanter of wine on a little mahogany stand, or playing the game called solitaire, at cards, of an evening; for at times he

was all alone with his dignity; though, as will ere long be shown, he generally had one pleasant companion, whose society he did not dislike.

The day following my attempt to drop in at the cabin, I happened to be making fast a rope on the quarter-deck, when the captain suddenly made his appearance, promenading up and down, and smoking a cigar. He looked very good-humored and amiable, and it being just after his dinner, I thought that this, to be sure, was just the chance I wanted.

I waited a little while, thinking he would speak to me himself; but as he did not, I went up to him and began by saying it was a very pleasant day, and hoped he was very well. I never saw a man fly into such a rage; I thought he was going to knock me down; but after standing speechless awhile, he all at once plucked his cap from his head and threw it at me. I don't know what impelled me, but I ran to the lee scuppers where it fell, picked it up, and gave it to him with a bow; when the mate came running up, and thrust me forward again; and after he had got me as far as the windlass, he wanted to know whether I was crazy or not; for if I was, he would put me in irons right off, and have done with it.

But I assured him I was in my right mind, and knew perfectly well that I had been treated in the most rude and ungentlemanly manner both by him and Captain Riga. Upon this, he rapped out a great oath, and told me if ever I repeated what I had done that evening, or ever again presumed so much as to lift my hat to the captain, he would tie me into the rigging, and keep me there until I learned better manners. "You are very green," said he, "but I'll ripen you." Indeed this chief mate seemed to have the keeping of the dignity of the captain, who in some sort seemed too dignified per. sonally to protect his own dignity.

I thought this strange enough, to be reprimanded, and charged with rudeness for an act of common civility. However, seeing how matters stood, I resolved to let the captain alone for the future, par. ticularly as he had shown himself so deficient in the ordinary breeding of a gentleman. could hardly credit it, that this was the same man who had been so very civil, and polite, and witty, when Mr. Jones and I called upon him in port.

And I

But this astonishment of mine was much increased, when some days after, a storm came upon us, and the captain rushed out of the cabin in his nightcap, and nothing else but his shirt on; and leaping up on the poop, began to jump up and down, and curse and swear, and call the men aloft all manner of hard names, just like a common loafer in the street.

Besides all this, too, I noticed that while we were at sea, he wore nothing but old shabby clothes, very different from the glossy suit I had seen him in at our first interview, and after that on the steps of the City Hotel, where he always boarded when in New York. Now, he wore nothing but old-fashioned snuff-colored coats, with high collars and short waists; and faded, short-legged pantaloons, very tight about the knees; and vests that did not conceal his waistbands, owing to their being so short, just like a little boy's. And his hats were all caved in, and battered, as if they had been knocked about in a cellar; and his boots were sadly patched. Indeed, I began to think that he was but a shabby fellow after all, particularly as his whiskers lost their gloss, and he went days together without shaving; and his hair, by a sort of miracle, began to grow of a pepper and salt color, which might have been owing, though, to his discontinuing the use of some kind of dye while at sea. I put him