and cheerful employment of the heads and hands of his officers and people during those trying periods of inaction which occur in every service.  Sir Samuel Hood possessed this faculty in a wonderful degree, as he not only kept us all busy when there was nothing to be done, but contrived to make us happy and contented, though some of our prospects were poor enough in all conscience.  My own, for example, since I was placed at the tip of the tail of his long string of private followers; and when the Admiralty List came out, on which I had built so many beautiful castles in the air, my poor name was not upon it at all.  I had not expected to be first or second, or even third; fourth I had reckoned upon as possible; fifth as probable; sixth as certain; so that my horror and disappointment were excessive when this kindest of commanders-in-chief broke to me the fatal news, in the following characteristic manner.

A telegraphic signal had been made from the flagstaff at the Admiral’s house to the ship, in these words:—­

“Send Mr. Hall on shore, with a crow-bar, two pick-axes, and two spades.”

All the way to the landing-place I puzzled myself with thinking what on earth could be the object of these tools; little dreaming, good easy lieutenant! that I was so soon to dig the grave of my own hopes.  The Admiral received me at the door with his coat off; and holding out his remaining hand (his right arm was shot away in action), he squeezed mine with even more than his wonted kindness.

“I have been waiting for you with some impatience;” he said, “to be present at the hunt after a white ant’s nest, a sort of thing I know you like.  These rogues, the Termites bellicosi, as I find the naturalists call them, have made their way into the house! and having carried their galleries up the walls and along the roof, have come down in great force upon a trunk of clothes, which they would have destroyed entirely before night, had I not caught sight of them.  Now let us to work; for I propose to rip up the floor of the verandah, in order to follow their passages and galleries till I reach their nest, if it be a mile off; won’t this he a glorious piece of service?” exclaimed the Admiral, as he warmed himself by anticipating the chase.  He could hardly have been more delighted, I am persuaded, had he been giving orders for a fleet under his command to bear down upon the enemy’s line.  I could not venture to do more than bow, and say I was much obliged to him for having so considerately thought of me at such a moment.

“Oh!” cried he, apparently recollecting himself, “but I have something else to show you; or rather to tell you, for I must not show it; though I fear it will not please you quite so much as the prospect of a white ant-hunt.  Here, Gigna,” called the Admiral to his steward, who stood by with a tea-kettle of hot water, ready to pour over the ants, “put away that affair, which we shall not require this half-hour yet; and hold this crow-bar while I step into the office with Mr. Hall.”