“In the spring of 1832 I accepted a very advantageous offer for charter, and with several passengers sailed for Cape Town on what proved to be my last voyage (excepting the return trip) as a ship-master.  We had rough weather most of the way out, and a long passage, but nothing occurred which would interest you now.  The season was a disastrous one to shipping on that route, and before leaving the Cape I had the vessel thoroughly overhauled, and was fortunate enough to secure three or four good seamen to make up a full crew.  My first officer was an old salt, a strict disciplinarian, but kind to the men and a favorite with them all.  Like most of his class, he was given to profanity in private conversation, but he never swore at the men, and always encouraged them at their work with cheery words.  The weather was lovely when we sailed for home, and continued so until we were four days out.  The ordinary routine of a master’s duty was simple enough, and I had plenty of leisure for watching the beautiful Cape pigeons which followed the ship’s wake, my favorite amusement when tired of reading.  We were a little out of the common track of vessels in those seas, and sighted very few sail, none of which passed within hail.  On the morning of the fifth day out I indulged myself a little, having been up quite late the night before studying the charts, and it being the first mate’s watch, a man in whom I had great confidence.  When I turned out I found the ship becalmed.  We were not yet in the calm latitudes, and I did not altogether like the looks of the weather.  The sea was as smooth as an immense expanse of blue steel; there was a long, low swell, like the memory of yesterday’s breeze, but not a ripple could be detected by the glass in any quarter; the sky had an almost coppery glow, and the sun blazed down with a force which made all the seams of the deck-planks sticky with melting pitch.  Still, the barometer was rising, and there was nothing to indicate danger.  Although competent to perform skillfully all the duties of my profession, I had not, as you know, that long experience which alone can give a seaman thorough knowledge of all his perils even before they are apparent.  I felt no apprehensions, therefore; and when I saw how Mr. Kelson was overhauling every rope and sail and spar, and making everything snug alow and aloft, I only congratulated myself on having an officer who kept the men too busy to get into mischief, and lost no opportunity for putting and keeping everything in order.”

I now knew that Uncle Joseph was “fairly wound off” on his yarn, for I never before had heard him use so many sea-phrases.  All of them I did not fully understand, but he was evidently thinking very little of me, and did not stop to explain.

“It was about four bells when the lookout in the cross-trees sung out, ‘Sail ho!’

“‘Where away?’ I asked.

“’Broad on the port-beam,” was the answer.