inexperience, and met with an untimely fate whilst sailing on
Melville water. I myself twice narrowly escaped such a calamity, as
perhaps I may hereafter narrate. Every boat belonging to the place
is immediately engaged in search of the body, and many of the boatmen
freely sacrifice their time and day's wages in the pursuit. And when
at length the object of that melancholy search is discovered, and the
day of the funeral has arrived, the friends, companions, neighbours,
and fellow-townsmen of the deceased assemble at the door of his late
residence, to pay the last testimonies of sympathy and regret for him
who has, in that distant colony, no nearer relative to weep at his
grave. It is a long procession that follows the corpse to its home,
passing with solemn pace through the else deserted streets, and
emerging into the wild forest which seems almost to engulph the town;
and then pursuing the silent and solitary path for a mile until, on
the summit of a hill, surrounded by dark ever-green foliage, appears
the lonesome burial-ground. Ah! how little thought the tenant of
that insensible body, late so full of life and vigour, that here he
should so soon be laid, far from the tombs of his family, far from
the home of his parents, to which his thoughts had so constantly
recurred! I do not think any one ever witnessed the interment in
that solitary place of one whom perhaps he knew but slightly when
living, without feeling in himself a sensation of loneliness, as
though a cold gust from the open grave had blown over him. It is
then we think most of England and home -- and of those who though
living are dead to us.

But these are only transient emotions; they are idle and unavailing,
so away with them!

I shall now proceed to give an account of my first appearance before