all
these means were ineffectual, for, at intervals, nearly regular, the
fever would again appear, and men and officers die.

Hitherto, I had escaped. The only attack to which I was subjected took
place in the capstan-house, for so the place was called where we were
bivouacked during the heaving down of the ship. I record it, not that
my conduct under the disease may be imitated, but on account of the
singularity of the access, and the rapidity of the cure.

I had to tow, from Port Royal up to Kingston, a powder-boy, and, through
some misconduct of the coxswain, the boat's awning had been left behind.
Six or seven hours under a sun, vertical at noon, through the hottest
part of the day, and among the swamps and morasses, so luxuriant in
vegetable productions, that separate Port Royal from Kingston, is a good
ordeal by which to try a European constitution. For the first time, my
stamina seemed inclined to succumb before it.

When I returned to Port Royal, at about four in the afternoon, the first
peculiar sensation with which I was attacked was a sort of slipping of
the ground from under me as I trod, and a notion that I could skim along
the surface of the earth if I chose, without using my legs. Then I was
not, as is most natural to a fasting midshipman, excessively hungry, but
excessively jocular. So, instead of seeking good things to put into my
mouth, I went about dispensing them from out of it. I soon began to be
sensible that I was talking much nonsense, and to like it. At length,
the little sense that I had still left, was kind enough to suggest to me
that I might be distinguished by my first interview with that king of
terrors, Saffron-crowned Jack. "Shall I go to the doctor?" said I.
"No--I have the greatest opinion of Doctor Thompson--but it is a great
pity that he cannot cure the yellow-fever. No doubt he'll be offended,
and we are the greatest of friends. But, I have always observed, that
all those who go to the doctor begin going indeed--for, from the doctor
they invariably go to their hammocks--from their hammocks go to the
hospital--and from the hospital go to the palisades." So while there
was yet time, I decided to go in quite an opposite direction. I went
out of the dockyard gates, and to a nice, matronly, free mulatto, who
was a mother to me--and something more. She was a woman of some
property, and had a very strong gang of young Negroes, that she used to
hire out to his Majesty, to wo