Despite the perils of the surf, the dangers of the inhospitable climate, and the unfriendly character of some of the savage tribes to be met with, the adventurous spirit and dauntless courage of Master Perkins was not to be balked.  Volunteering for every duty, no matter how dangerous, hardly a boat ever left the ship that he was not in it.  The life of the mess through his unfailing good humor and exuberant flow of spirits, he was the soul of every expedition, whether of service or pleasure; and before the cruise of some twenty-two months was up, he came to know almost every prominent tribe, chief, and king on the coast.  Now dining with a king off the strangest of viands; now holding “palaver” with another; now spending a day with a chief and his numerous wives; now visiting a French barracoon, where, under a fiction of law, the victims were collected to be shipped as unwilling apprentices, not slaves, to be returned to their native wilds, if they lived long enough; now ascending a river dangerous for boats, where, if the boat had capsized, himself and crew would but have served a morning’s meal to the hungry sharks held as fetich by the natives along the stream, who yearly sacrifice young girls reared for the purpose to their propitiation; now scouring the bush in pursuit of the gorilla or shooting hippopotami by the half-dozen, and other adventures and exploits wherein duty, excitement, and gratified curiosity were intermingled with danger and hairbreadth escape that few would care to tempt.

On one occasion, he volunteered to go with a boat’s crew and find the mouth of the Settee River, not dreaming of landing through the unusually heavy surf.  “But,” said he, “in pulling along about half a mile from shore, a roller struck the boat and capsized it.  Of course we were obliged to swim for shore; in fact, we had little to do with it, for the moment the boat was upset we were driven into the surf, and not one of us thought we should ever reach the shore, for if we were not lost in the surf, the sharks would eat us up.  As I rose on the top of a wave I could look ahead and see the stretch of wild, tossing surf, which it seemed impossible for any one to live in; but when I looked back I could count all my men striking out, which was very encouraging, as I feared one or two might be under the boat.  I thought for a moment of you all at home, and wondered if mother would not feel a little frightened if she knew how strong the chances were against her son’s receiving any more letters from home.  Just then a roller struck me and carried me down so deep I was caught by the undertow and carried toward the sea, instead of the land.  When I came to the surface I tried to look out for the next roller, but it was no use; the first one half-drowned me, and the next kept me down so long that when I rose I was in the wildest of the surf, which tumbled and rolled me about in a way I did not like at all.  My eyes, nose, and mouth were full of sand, and, in fact, I thought