while I followed him, without being noticed by the men at work. We
proceeded at once into the cabin, and found no person there. It was
fitted up in the most comfortable style- a thing somewhat unusual in
a whaling-vessel. There were four very excellent staterooms, with
wide and convenient berths. There was also a large stove, I took
notice, and a remarkably thick and valuable carpet covering the floor
of both the cabin and staterooms. The ceiling was full seven feet
high, and, in short, every thing appeared of a more roomy and
agreeable nature than I had anticipated. Augustus, however, would
allow me but little time for observation, insisting upon the
necessity of my concealing myself as soon as possible. He led the way
into his own stateroom, which was on the starboard side of the brig,
and next to the bulkheads. Upon entering, he closed the door and
bolted it. I thought I had never seen a nicer little room than the
one in which I now found myself. It was about ten feet long, and had
only one berth, which, as I said before, was wide and convenient. In
that portion of the closet nearest the bulkheads there was a space of
four feet square, containing a table, a chair, and a set of hanging
shelves full of books, chiefly books of voyages and travels. There
were many other little comforts in the room, among which I ought not
to forget a kind of safe or refrigerator, in which Augustus pointed
out to me a host of delicacies, both in the eating and drinking
department.

He now pressed with his knuckles upon a certain spot of the
carpet in one corner of the space just mentioned, letting me know
that a portion of the flooring, about sixteen inches square, had been
neatly cut out and again adjusted. As he pressed, this portion rose
up at one end sufficiently to allow the passage of his finger
beneath. In this manner he raised the mouth of the trap (to which the