amongst the crew, some of whom were partial to shark steak. A piece of
the backbone I secured for myself as a memento of the occasion.

As if to bear out the superstition I have mentioned, a few days
subsequently a death, or rather two deaths, did actually take place;
they were the twins and only children of a Scottish shepherd and his
wife, both on board. Pretty little girls of eight, as I remember them,
playing about the deck, and favourites with all, they died within a day
of each other. The father was a gigantic fellow, and I have pleasant
recollections of him in after years, when time and other children had
helped to assuage his and his wife's grief for the loss of their two
darlings at sea by one stroke of illness.

There is something more affecting in a burial at sea than one on land.
In this instance the little body was wrapped in a white cloth, to which
a small bag of coals was fastened, and laid upon a slide projecting from
the stern of the vessel ready for immersion. The captain read the Burial
Service, all on board standing uncovered. At the words "Dust to dust,"
etc., the body was allowed to slide into the sea--where it immediately
disappeared. The mother was too ill to be present, and the father's
grief was severe, as it might well be, to witness his child laid in so
lonely a resting place in mid-ocean without sign or mark. The following
evening a similar scene was enacted when the body of the other little
sister was committed to the deep, and the father had to be taken away
before the service was completed.

No ceremonies I ever beheld impressed and affected me so much as the
burial of the little twins at sea.

While in the Tropics we had occasional calms, sometimes lasting for two