n called Harry the steward, and directed him to give me in charge
of Moggridge the boatswain, with instructions to show me everything that
was to be seen alow and aloft in the vessel; whereupon the two of us
went out of the cabin together, leaving the captain and dad to have an
uninterrupted chat over their cigars.

Moggridge turned out to be the very sailor who had been in charge of the
launch which had brought us off to the ship; so, from the fact of his
knowing that dad had formerly been in the navy, and that I wished to
enter the same glorious service, we were soon on the most confidential
terms, the good-natured fellow going out of his way to make me
thoroughly acquainted with all the details of the _Josephine_. He first
took me down to the hold, where I saw the hogs-heads of sugar being
stowed, the casks being packed as tightly as sardines in a tin box. We
then went through the ship fore and aft between the decks, from the
forecastle to the steward's pantry. After this the boatswain completed
his tour of instruction by showing me how to climb the rigging into the
main-top, telling me the names and uses of all the ropes and spars; so
that, by the time he had ended, my head was in a state of bewildered
confusion, with shrouds and sheets, halliards and stays, stun'-sail
yards and cat-heads, bowsprits, and spanker booms, all so mixed up
together that it would have puzzled me to discriminate between any of
them and say off-hand which was which!

However, the boatswain and I parted very good friends when he took me
back to the cabin on the termination of our inspection of the ship--he
promising to teach me how to make a reef-knot and a running-bowline the
next time I came on board, and I shaking hands with him as a right good
fellow whom I would only be too glad to meet again under any
circumstances.

Dad and I stopped with Captain Miles until late in the afternoon; when,
the glare of the sun having gone off, we were rowed ashore in the
captain's gig. My friend Moggridge took charge of us, and a crew of
hardy sailors made the boat spin ashore at a very different rate of
speed to that which the heavy old launch displayed on our trip out to
the vessel with the sugar hogs-heads.

Jake met us at the jetty with the horses, which he had put up in the
stables of the adjoining plantation during our absence; and as we rode
along the shore of the bay homeward, the sun was just setting, while a
nice cool wind came down fro