me, when he was not on watch, or doing some duty for the ship.  No one was more attentive to his duty than he; but at such times as he had leisure, he would shew me all pretty sea sights:—­the dolphins and porpoises that came before a storm, and all the colours which the sea changed to; how sometimes it was a deep blue, and then a deep green, and sometimes it would seem all on fire:  all these various appearances he would shew me, and attempt to explain the reason of them to me, as well as my young capacity would admit of.  There was a lion and a tiger on board, going to England as a present to the king, and it was a great diversion to Atkinson and me, after I had got rid of my first terrors, to see the ways of these beasts in their dens, and how venturous the sailors were in putting their hands through the grates, and patting their rough coats.  Some of the men had monkeys, which ran loose about, and the sport was for the men to lose them, and find them again.  The monkeys would run up the shrouds, and pass from rope to rope, with ten times greater alacrity than the most experienced sailor could follow them; and sometimes they would hide themselves in the most unthought-of places, and when they were found, they would grin, and make mouths as if they had sense.  Atkinson described to me the ways of these little animals in their native woods, for he had seen them.  Oh, how many ways he thought of to amuse me in that long voyage!

Sometimes he would describe to me the odd shapes and varieties of fishes that were in the sea, and tell me tales of the sea-monsters that lay hid at the bottom, and were seldom seen by men; and what a glorious sight it would be, if our eyes could be sharpened to behold all the inhabitants of the sea at once, swimming in the great deeps, as plain as we see the gold and silver fish in a bowl of glass.  With such notions he enlarged my infant capacity to take in many things.

When in foul weather I have been terrified at the motion of the vessel, as it rocked backwards and forwards, he would still my fears, and tell me that I used to be rocked so once in a cradle, and that the sea was God’s bed, and the ship our cradle, and we were as safe in that greater motion, as when we felt that lesser one in our little wooden sleeping-places.  When the wind was up, and sang through the sails, and disturbed me with its violent clamours, he would call it music, and bid me hark to the sea-organ, and with that name he quieted my tender apprehensions.  When I have looked around with a mournful face at seeing all men about me, he would enter into my thoughts, and tell me pretty stories of his mother and his sisters, and a female cousin that he loved better than his sisters, whom he called Jenny, and say that when we got to England I should go and see them, and how fond Jenny would be of his little daughter, as he called me; and with these images of women and females which he raised in my fancy, he quieted me for a time.  One time, and never but once, he told me that Jenny had promised to be his wife if ever he came to England, but that he had his doubts whether he should live to get home, for he was very sickly.  This made me cry bitterly.