to Atkinson and me, after I had got rid of my
first terrors, to see the ways of these beasts in their dens, and how
venturous the sailors were in putting their hands through the grates,
and patting their rough coats. Some of the men had monkeys, which ran
loose about, and the sport was for the men to lose them, and find them
again. The monkeys would run up the shrouds, and pass from rope to
rope, with ten times greater alacrity than the most experienced sailor
could follow them; and sometimes they would hide themselves in the
most unthought-of places, and when they were found, they would grin,
and make mouths as if they had sense. Atkinson described to me the
ways of these little animals in their native woods, for he had seen
them. Oh, how many ways he thought of to amuse me in that long voyage!

Sometimes he would describe to me the odd shapes and varieties of
fishes that were in the sea, and tell me tales of the sea-monsters
that lay hid at the bottom, and were seldom seen by men; and what a
glorious sight it would be, if our eyes could be sharpened to behold
all the inhabitants of the sea at once, swimming in the great deeps,
as plain as we see the gold and silver fish in a bowl of glass. With
such notions he enlarged my infant capacity to take in many things.

When in foul weather I have been terrified at the motion of the
vessel, as it rocked backwards and forwards, he would still my fears,
and tell me that I used to be rocked so once in a cradle, and that
the sea was God's bed, and the ship our cradle, and we were as safe
in that greater motion, as when we felt that lesser one in our little
wooden sleeping-places. When the wind was up, and sang through the
sails, and disturbed me with its violent clamours, he would call it
music, and bid me hark to the sea-organ, and with that name he quieted
my tender apprehensions. When I have looked around with a mournful
face at seeing all _men_ about me, he would enter into my thoughts,
and tell me pretty stories of his mother and his sisters, and a female
cousin that he loved better than his sisters, whom he called Jenny,
and say that when we got to England I should go and see them, and how
fond Jenny would be of his little daughter, as he called me; and with
these images of women and females which he raised in my fancy, he
quieted me for a time. One time, and never but once, he told me that
Jenny had promised to be his wife if ever he came to England, but that
he had his