them a good education, and she had done in the same
way all she could for this boy; but I believe that her means failed her,
and she was then unable to pay for his instruction, so that he only got
what she herself could give him. The boy's whole heart had been set on
going to sea, little knowing, of course, what he would have to go
through."

Soon after we came on board, it began to blow much harder; and we had
good reason to be thankful that the accident had not happened later in
the day. I was, after this event, made a good deal of on board. The
captain observed that I ran a considerable risk of being spoiled. It
was not fair, indeed, that I should get all the praise, when the black
cook had also behaved in a gallant manner. Indeed, if it had not been
for him, I suspect that the albatrosses would have finished both Oliver
and me before the boat could have got up to us.

"Very glad you escaped, Massa Walter," said Potto Jumbo, the following
day. "Dear me! I jump overboard twice as much sea as dat!" he added,
when I told him how thankful I was to him. "Me fight shark with one big
knife, and cut him under the t'roat and kill him. Potto Jumbo one
'phibious animal, so doctor once say to me. I swim in de water like
porpoise, and climb tree like monkey. Ah! you see de monkeys when we
get out dere," and Potto Jumbo pointed eastward. "Ah! dat one fine
country, only little too hot sometimes for lily-white skins;" and Potto
Jumbo grinned from ear to ear, as if congratulating himself that his own
dark covering was impervious to the sun's rays of that or any other
region.

Potto Jumbo's chief friend was an English seaman--Roger Trew by name.
Roger was short and stout, with wonderfully long arms, and of immense
strength; but he never put it forth except in the way of duty, and was
on ordinary occasions as mild and gentle as a lamb. I believe Potto
Jumbo admired him because he had the power of knocking any man down on
board who might offend him, and yet did not use it. The captain
considered Trew a good seaman; and so, I know, did Joe Tarbox. His
figure did not appear well suited for going aloft, and yet no man could
more quickly overhaul the weather earing in a heavy gale than he could.
I have said sufficient about the ship's company for the present. I do
not mention others, because there was nothing very remarkable about
them. I had been doing my best to become a seaman ever since I stepped
on board, both by ma