Portsmouth, without any other occurrence save a little
casting-up of accounts, and a few distorted faces from sea-sickness.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

FOOTNOTES:

[5] Wearing the coat turned inside out (whence "turncoat"), an old
military punishment now long since forgotten. It survived as a
punishment for drunkenness among Chelsea and Greenwich in-pensioners for
years after it had been discontinued in the service.--ED.

CHAPTER IV.

We had not been long at Portsmouth, when the head-quarters of the
regiment were ordered to embark on board of the _Surat Castle_ East
Indiaman, a fifteen-hundred-ton ship, then lying off Spithead, and the
remainder of the corps on board of other ships at the same place. Our
destination was the Cape of Good Hope. The _Surat Castle_ in which I was
doomed to sail, was most dreadfully crowded; men literally slept upon
one another, and in the orlop-deck the standing beds were three tiers
high, besides those slinging. Added to this, the seeds of a pestilential
disease had already been sown. An immense number of Lascars, who had
been picked up in every sink of poverty, and most of whom had been
living in England in a state of the most abject want and wretchedness,
had been shipped on board this vessel. Many of these poor creatures had
been deprived of their toes and fingers by the inclemency of winter, and
others had accumulated diseases from filth, many of them having
subsisted for a considerable time upon what they picked up in the
streets. The pestilential smell between decks was beyond the power of
description; and it was truly appalling to see these poor wretches, with
tremendous and frightful sores, and covered with vermin from head to
foot, many of them unable to assist themselves, left to die unaided,
unfriended, and without one who could perform the last sad office. The
moment the breath was out of their bodies, they were, like dogs, thrown
overboard as food for sharks. To alleviate their sufferings by personal
aid was impossible, for we had scarcely men enough to work the ship.
These circumstances were, I suppose, reported to the proper authority;
but, whether this was the case or not, in three or four days we weighed
anchor, with about sixty other ships for all parts of the world. The
splendid sight but little accorded with the aching hearts, lacerated
bodies, and wounded minds of the poor creatures below. It was about four
o'clock in the afternoon when the signal w