have to go through. After once crossing the line you can never be
subjected to the process, but are considered as a son of Neptune, with
full powers to play tricks upon others. This ancient custom is now
seldom allowed, unless there are passengers on board, in which case
there is always a good deal of sport.

  It had been obvious to all hands for some time that the second mate,
whose name was F---, was an idle, careless fellow, and not much of a
sailor, and that the captain was exceedingly dissatisfied with him.
The power of the captain in these cases was well known, and we all
anticipated a difficulty. F--- (called Mr. by virtue of his office)
was but half a sailor, having always been short voyages and remained
at home a long time between them. His father was a man of some
property, and intended to have given his son a liberal education;
but he, being idle and worthless, was sent off to sea, and succeeded
no better there; for, unlike many scamps, he had none of the qualities
of a sailor- he was "not of the stuff that they make 'lors of." He
was one of that class of officers who are disliked by their captain
and despised by the crew. He used to hold long yarns with the crew,
and talk about the captain, and play with the boys, and relax
discipline in every way. This kind of conduct always makes the captain
suspicious, and is never pleasant, in the end, to the men; they
preferring to have an officer active, vigilant, and distant as may be,
with kindness. Among other bad practices, he frequently slept on his
watch, and having been discovered asleep by the captain, he was told
that he would be turned off duty if he did it again. To prevent it
in every way possible the hen-coops were ordered to be knocked up, for
the captain never sat down on deck himself, and never permitted an
officer to do so.

  The second night after crossing the equator, we had the watch from
eight till twelve, and it was "my helm" for the last two hours.
There had been light squalls through the night, and the captain told
Mr. F---, who commanded our watch, to keep a bright lookout. Soon
after I came to the helm, I found that he was quite drowsy, and at
last he stretched himself on the companion and went fast asleep.
Soon afterwards, the captain came very quietly on deck, and stood by
me for some time looking at the compass. The officer at length
became aware of the captain's presence, but pretending not to know it,
began humming and whistling to himself, to show that he was not
asleep, and went forward, without looking behind him, and ordered
the main royal to be loosed. On turning round to come aft, he
pretended surprise at seeing the master on deck. This would not do.
The captain was too "wide awake" for him, and beginning upon him at
once, gave him a grand blow-up, in true nautical style- "You're a
lazy, good-for-nothing rascal; you're neither man, boy, soger, nor
sailor! you're no more than a thing aboard a vessel! you don't earn
your salt; you're worse than a Mahon soger!" and other still more
choice extracts from the sailor's vocabulary. After the poor fellow
had taken this harangue, he was sent into his stateroom, and the
captain stood the rest of the watch himself.

  At seven bells in the morning, all hands were called aft and told
that F--- was no longer an officer on board, and that we might
choose one of our own number for second mate. It is usual for the
captain to make this offer, and it is very good policy, for the crew
think themselves the choosers and are flattered by it, but have to
obey, nevertheless. Our crew, as is usual, refused to take the
responsibility of choosing a man of whom we would never be able to
complain, and left it to the captain. He picked out an active and
intelligent young sailor, born near the Kennebec, who had been several
Canton voyages, and proclaimed him in the following manner: "I
choose Jim Hall- he's your second mate. All you've got to do is to
obey him as you would me; and remember that he is Mr. Hall." F--- went
forward into the forecastle as a common sailor, and lost the handle to
his name, while young foremast Jim became Mr. Hall, and took up his
quarters in the land of knives and forks and tea-cups.

  Sunday, October 5th. It was our morning watch; when, soon after
the day began to break, a man on the forecastle called out, "Land ho!"
I had never heard the cry before, and did not know what it meant, (and
few would suspect what the words were, when hearing the strange
sound for the first time,) but I soon found, by the direction of all
eyes, that there was land stretching along on our weather beam. We
immediately took in studding-sails and hauled our wind, running in for
the land. This was done to determine our longitude; for by the
captain's chronometer we were in 25 deg. W., but by his observations
we were much farther, and he had been for some time in doubt whether
it was his chronometer or his sextant which was out of order. This
land-fall settled the matter, and the former instrument was condemned,
and, becoming still worse, was never afterwards used.

  As we ran in towards the coast, we found that we were directly off
the port of Pernambuco, and could see with the telescope the roofs
of the houses, and one large church, and the town of Olinda. We ran
along by the mouth of the harbor, and saw a full-rigged brig going in.
At two, P. M., we again kept off before the wind, leaving the land
on our quarter, and at sun-down, it was out of sight. It was here that
I first saw one of those singular things called catamarans. They are
composed of logs lashed together upon the water; have one large
sail, are quite fast, and, strange as it may seem, are trusted as good
sea boats. We saw several, with from one to three men in each,
boldly putting out to sea, after it had become almost dark. The
Indians go out in them after fish, and as the weather is regular in
certain seasons, they have no fear. After taking a new departure
from Olinda, we kept off on our way to Cape Horn.

  We met with nothing remarkable until we were in the latitude of
the river La Plata. Here there are violent gales from the southwest,
called Pamperos, which are very destructive to the shipping in the