In the autumn of 1831 a Berlin relative made me a present of a cannon, not just an ordinary child’s plaything, such as can be bought of any coppersmith or tinner, but a so-called pattern-cannon, such as is seen only in arsenals,—­a splendid specimen, of great beauty and elegance, the carriage firm and neat, the barrel highly polished and about a foot and a half long.  I was more than delighted, and determined to proceed at once to a bombardment of Swinemuende.  Two boys of my age and my younger brother climbed with me into a boat lying at Klempin’s Clapper, and we rowed down-stream, with the cannon in the bow.  When we were about opposite the Society House I considered that the time had arrived for the beginning of the bombardment, and fired three shots, waiting after each shot to see whether the people on the “Bulwark” took notice of us, and whether they showed due respect for the seriousness of our actions.  But neither of these things happened.  A thing that did happen, however, was that we meanwhile got out into the current, were caught by it and carried away, and when we suddenly saw ourselves between the embankments of the moles, I was suddenly seized with a terrible fright.  I realized that, if we kept on in this way, in ten minutes more we should be out at sea and might drift away toward Bornholm and the Swedish coast.  It was a desperate situation, and we finally resorted to the least brave, but most sensible, means imaginable, and began to scream with all our might, all the time beckoning and waving various objects, showing on the whole considerable cleverness in the invention of distress signals.  At last we attracted the attention of some pilots standing on the West mole, who shook their fingers threateningly at us, but finally, with smiling countenances, threw us a rope.  That rescued us from danger.  One of the pilots knew me; his son was one of my playmates.  This doubtless accounts for the fact that the seamen dismissed us with a few epithets, which might have been worse.  I took my cannon under my arm, but not without having the satisfaction of seeing it admired.  Then I went home, after promising to send out Hans Ketelboeter, a lusty sailor-boy who lived quite near our home, to row back the boat, which was meanwhile moored to a pile.

This was the most unique among my adventures with water, but by no means the most dangerous.  The most dangerous was at the same time the most ordinary, because it recurred every time I went swimming in the sea.  Any one who knows the Baltic seaside resorts, knows the so-called “reffs.”  By “reffs” are meant the sandbanks running parallel to the beach, out a hundred or two hundred paces, and often with very little water washing over them.  Upon these the swimmers can stand and rest, when, they have crossed the deep places lying between them and the shore.  In order that they may know exactly where these shallow places are, little red banners are hoisted over the sandbanks.  Here lay for me a daily temptation.