sts, and resumes his
station ahead, or to windward, or wherever it may suit him to place
himself so as best to guard his charge. If any of the fast sailers
have occasion to heave to, either before or after dinner, to lower
down or to hoist up the boat which carries the captain backwards and
forwards to the ship in which the entertainment is given, and in
consequence of this detention any way has been lost, that ship has
only to set a little more sail that she may shoot ahead, and regain
her position in the line.

The bad sailers of all fleets or convoys are daily and hourly
execrated in every note of the gamut; and it must be owned that the
detention they cause, when a fine fresh breeze is blowing, is
excessively provoking to all the rest, and mortifying to themselves.
Sometimes the progress of one haystack of a vessel is so slow that a
fast-sailing ship is directed to take her in tow, and fairly lug her
along. As this troublesome operation requires for its proper execution
no small degree of nautical knowledge, as well as dexterity, and must
be performed in the face of the whole squadron, it is always exposed
to much sharp criticism. The celerity with which sail is set, or taken
in, by the respective ships, or the skill with which broken spars are
shifted, likewise furnish such abundant scope for technical
table-talk, that there is seldom any want of topic in the convoy.
Sailors, indeed, are about as restless as the element on which they
float; and their hands are generally kept pretty full by the necessity
of studying the fluctuating circumstances of wind and weather,
together with due attention to the navigation.

These occupations served to give a high degree of interest to this
Indian voyage, which, to most of us, was the first; the mere
circumstance of having to pass successively and quickly through a
number of different climates, first in the order of increasing warmth,
and then in the reverse order of increasing cold, was of itself most
striking. The change of latitude being the chief cause of these
phenomena, a succession of astronomical variations were necessarily
attendant upon the progress of the voyage; easily explained by
reasonings, and the actual, practical exhibition, as it may be termed,
of the truths of astronomical science failed not to strike the
unfamiliarised imagination as both wonderful and beautiful.

When we sailed from England the weather was very cold, raw, and
uncomfortable; and althoug