1858, when I was a child of thirteen years and
a few months old. My first ship was a well-known Australian liner, the
'Duncan Dunbar,' commanded by an old salt, named Neatby, who will always
be memorable to me for his habit of wearing the tall chimney-pot hat of
the London streets in all weathers and parallels, whether in the
roasting calms of the Equator, or in the snow-darkened hurricanes of the
Horn. I went to sea as a 'midshipman' as it is termed, though I never
could persuade myself that a lad in the Merchant Service, no matter how
heavy might be the premium his friends paid for him, has a right to a
title of grade or rating that belongs essentially and peculiarly to the
Royal Navy. I signed for a shilling a month, and with the rest of us
(there were ten) was called 'young gentleman'; but we were put to work
which an able seaman would have been within his rights in refusing, as
being what is called 'boys'' duty. I need not be particular. Enough that
the discipline was as rough as though we had been lads in the
forecastle, with a huge boatswain and brutal boatswain's mates to look
after us. We paid ten guineas each as a contribution to some imagination
of a stock of eatables for the midshipmen's berth; but my memory
carries no more than a few tins of preserved potatoes, a great number of
bottles of pickles, and a cask of exceedingly moist sugar. Therefore, we
were thrown upon the ship's provisions, and I very soon became
intimately acquainted with the quality and nature of the stores served
out to forecastle hands.

[Illustration: NEATBY]

I made, but not after the manner of Gulliver, several voyages into
remote nations of the world, and in the eight years I was at sea I
picked up enough knowledge to qualify me to give the public a few new
ideas about the ocean life. Yet when the scribbling mania possessed me
it was long before I could summon courage to write about the sea and
sailors. I asked myself, Who is interested in the Merchant Service? What
public shall I find to listen to me? Those who read novels want stories
about love and elopements, abductions, and the several violations of the
sanctities of domestic life. The great mass of readers--those who
support the circulating libraries--are ladies. Will it be possible to
interest ladies in forecastle life and in the prosaics of the cabin?

[Illustration: ANCHORED IN THE DOWNS]

Then, again, I was frightened by the Writer for Boys. _He_ was very much
at sea. I