from Buenos Ayres. The days were increasing in length, and the
weather became much warmer. The wind being on our beam, we could steer
straight, compared with what we had been doing before the wind. Besides,
the heavy rolling and lurching had diminished greatly. The effect of
heavy cargo, so much below the water-line, was greatly counteracted by
the wind striking us sideways. Going before the wind, the old brig
rolled terribly at times--so much so that we often expected the masts
to be snapped off, on account of the sudden jerking from side to side.
The forecastle was always wet and muddy, and, while eating, we would sit
on a chest, holding our pans in our laps, a cup in one hand, and
conveying the food to our mouths with the other, with both heels firmly
braced on the deck. Time and again an extra lurch would send us
a-sliding to the other side, bang against a chest or bunk, the food
flying in every direction. Back and forth we would go a dozen times
before we could stop. The sulphur and brimstone would hang in festoons
from the deck beams by the time we had stopped cursing the old brig.

On the first clear day, instead of going to bed in my morning watch
below, eight to twelve in the morning, I went aloft to the fore-top, and
remained there the four hours enjoying the luxury of an airy wind-bath.
It was the first time in nearly three months that my clothing was dry,
and not so very dry then, either. The mates had been throwing out hints
about going into port for repairs. We had passed all the Pacific
harbours, and were doing the same with the Atlantic harbours, when, very
much to our joy, we sighted the Sugar Loaf, a very high conical rock, it
being the southern point of land at the entrance to the harbour of Rio
de Janeiro--River of January--Brazil, South America. So, much to our
joy, we were bound for port. My chum and I were of one mind--that was,
to quit the guano business P. D. Q.

The entrance to the harbour was very narrow and well fortified. There
were steep rocks on each side. We were hailed from one of the forts and
asked the brig's name, destination, and last port. Our sails were
gradually taken in. At last we rounded to and dropped anchor. Rio is
admitted by all sailors to be the finest harbour in the world, and I
will guarantee that our old tub of a brig was the most dilapidated and
dirtiest specimen of the shipbuilder's handicraft that ever anchored in
it. It is a generally well-founded belief among sailo