of wind. The fact of our being so far to the southward
accounted, too, for the circumstance that we were not falling in with
any other vessels.

Hitherto I had been so fully employed that I had found no time to search
for the ship's papers, or do more than ascertain the bare fact that she
was of American nationality, that she was named the _Governor Smeaton_,
and that she hailed from Portland, Maine; but now that the weather had
come fine once more, I determined to devote a few hours to the work of
overhauling the vessel and discovering what I could about her. So I
went to work and instituted a thoroughly systematic search, beginning in
the skipper's cabin--having of course first obtained Miss Onslow's
permission--and there, stowed carefully away in a lock-up desk--which,
after some hesitation, I decided to break open--I found the ship's
papers intact, enclosed in a small tin case. And from these I learned,
first, that her late master was named Josiah Hobson, and second, that
she was bound on a trading voyage to the Pacific, with a cargo of
"notions." Then, in another drawer, also in the skipper's cabin,
carefully stowed away under some clothes, I found the log-book, and a
chart of the Atlantic Ocean, with the brig's course, up to a certain
point, pricked off upon it; and from these two documents I learned that
the brig had sailed, on such and such a date, from New York, with what,
in the way of weather, progress, and so on, had befallen her, up to a
date some five weeks later, whereon entries had been made in the
log-book up to noon. The remarks respecting the weather at that hour
gave no indication of any warning of the catastrophe that must have
occurred only a few hours later. This last entry in the log-book
enabled me to determine that the brig had been drifting about derelict
for nearly three weeks when we two ocean waifs fell in with and took
possession of her. The "notions" of which her cargo consisted seemed,
according to the manifest, to comprise more or less of nearly everything
that could possibly captivate a savage's fancy; but in addition to these
multitudinous articles there were--somewhere in the ship--a few bales of
goods--mostly linen, fine muslins, silks, and ready-made clothing--
consigned to a firm in Valparaiso, which I believed would be of the
utmost value to Miss Onslow and myself, if I could but find them, and
which, under the circumstances, I felt I could unhesitatingly
appropriate to o