s she lay at anchor
while taking in cargo at Grenville Bay, I think I said that I had never
before been in a vessel. This, however, was not strictly accurate, for
when dad came out to the West Indies from England with my mother and
sisters some few years previously, I, of course, accompanied them; and
as we had to cross the Atlantic in order to reach Grenada, and there was
no other mode of overcoming the three thousand odd miles of ocean that
lay between us and our destination except by our adventuring the passage
in the ordinary way, I was then really for the first time taken on board
a ship. But it must be remembered that I was only at that period a tiny
baby about the size of my little sister Tot; and, therefore, my
recollections of the time being rather hazy, my first real experiences
of the sea and all the incidents of the voyage came upon me with all
that novelty and interest which unfamiliarity alone can produce. It is,
nevertheless, only right that I should make this correction of my former
mis-statement, for I wish to give a true and impartial account of all
that happened to me from first to last. I am not "spinning a yarn"
merely, as sailor's say, but telling a true story of my life with all
its haps and mishaps.

Now, therefore, as the _Josephine_ dashed along, all was new and strange
to me; the limitless expanse of blue water shimmering in the summer sun,
with flocks of flying-fish rising in the air occasionally to seek refuge
from their enemies of the deep, only to fall back again below the
surface after a short curving flight, to avoid the grey pelicans
hovering above to attack them there; the fresh bracing breeze, which
blew in my face so exhilaratingly; the swaying motion of the vessel that
gave a lurch now and then, heeling over when the wind took her suddenly
on the quarter as she rose on the swell; the whistling of the cordage
and creaking of timbers and rattling of blocks, combined with the cheery
yo-ho-hoing of the sailors as they slacked a sheet here and tightened a
brace there. Really, I was so pleased, excited, and delighted with the
whole scene and its surroundings that it seemed as if I were in the ship
of a dream sailing on an enchanted sea!

Presently there arose out of the deep on our starboard bow the Pitons of
Saint Lucia, two twin conical rocks like the Needles, only ever so much
bigger, being over three thousand feet in height. They were festooned
from base to summit with beautifu