nd
told me to go into Poole and see what I could do for myself.

I found a number of vessels alongside the quays on the banks of the
river. I went on board one and then another and another, but the men I
saw laughed at me. Some said that boys were more trouble than use, that
they were always in the way when they were not wanted, and out of it
when they were wanted, and that I had not a chance of being taken. At
last I thought I must go back to mother and see if Farmer Denn can give
me work. I had got to the very end of the quay, and was turning back
when I met a gentleman, whom I had seen several times as I was coming on
shore from the vessels. He asked me in a kind voice what I was looking
for. I told him.

"Come in here, and we will see what can be done for you, my lad," he
said.

He took me into an office or sort of shop, full of all sorts of ship's
stores. In it were seated three or four men, who were, I found,
captains of vessels. My new friend having talked to them about me, one
of them asked, "Would you like to go to sea with me, boy?"

"Yes, sir," said I, for I liked the look of his face.

"You don't ask who I am, nor where I am going," he said.

"For that I don't care, sir; but I think you are a good man, and will be
a kind master," I answered boldly.

"Ah, well; you must not be too sure of that," said the captain. "I do
not sail from here, but from a place on the other side of England,
called Liverpool, and I am going a long, long voyage, to last two or
three years, may be."

I said that I should like that, because I should then be a good sailor
before I came back again. He then told me that Liverpool, next to
London, is the largest place for trade in England, and that thousands
and thousands of vessels sail from it every year to all parts of the
world. He was going back there in a few days, where his ship was
getting ready for a voyage to the Pacific Ocean, and very likely round
the world.

The Pacific, he told me, is a very large spread of water on the other
side of America, many thousands of miles long and wide. First we should
have to cross the Atlantic ocean, off there where the sun sets. That is
also many thousands of miles long and wide. On the farther side is
America. We should have to go round the south point of America, called
Cape Horn, to get into the Pacific. The Pacific is full of islands,
generally a number of small ones together, then a wide open space, and
then more