they would do and what they wouldn't do in the next port was talked of,
when song and yarn ran out.

Hold fast, shipmate, hold fast and belay! or the crimps of Montevideo
will wear the new jacket you promise yourself, while you will be off
Cape Horn, singing "Haul out to leeward," with a wet stocking on your
neck, and with the same old "lamby" on, that long since was "lamby" only
in name, the woolly part having given way to a cloth worn much in "Far
Cathay"; in short, you will dress in dungaree, the same as now, while
the crimps and landsharks divide your scanty earnings, unless you "take
in the slack" of your feelings, and "make all fast and steady all."

Ten days out, and we were in the northeast "trades"--porpoises were
playing under the bows as only porpoises can play; dolphins were racing
alongside, and flying-fish were all about. This was, indeed, a happy
change, and like being transported to another world. Our hardships were
now all forgotten, for "the sea washes off all the woes of men."

One week more of pleasant sailing, all going orderly on board, and Cape
Verde Islands came in sight. A grand and glorious sight they were! All
hail, _terra firma_! It is good to look at you once again! By noon the
islands were abeam, and the fresh trade-wind in the evening bore us out
of sight of them before dark.

Most delightful sailing is this large, swinging motion of our bark
bounding over the waves, with the gale abaft the beam, driving her
forward till she fairly leaps from billow to billow, as if trying to
rival her companions, the very flying-fish. Thwarted now by a sea, she
strikes it with her handsome bows, sending into the light countless
thousand sprays, that shine like a nimbus of glory. The tread on her