place before," answered
Jos; "but still I am never surprised at meeting someone who knows me.
Once, when pulling up the Nun, in Africa, on the first visit I paid to
that delectable stream, as I happened to be remarking that I had no
friends there, at all events, a black, who had swum off from the shore,
put his head over the bows and exclaimed, `Massa Green, glad to see you.
What! sure you 'member Jiggery Pop, who served aboard the _Frisky_, at
the Cape?' And sure enough I remembered Jiggery well, seeing that I had
once picked him out of the water when he was near drowning, and he had
served me the same good turn."

While Jos was narrating this anecdote, a boat, pulled by half a dozen
stout seamen in blue and red shirts, was coming off from the shore to
the ship. Without ceremony they stepped on board, when one of them,
coming aft, touched his hat to the master. "You'll remember me, sir.
Served with you aboard the _Pantaloon_. I'm Jerry Bird."

"Glad to see you, Jerry; you saved me from being cut down when we had
that affair out in the Pacific."

"No, sir, I think it was t'other way," said Jerry; "I haven't forgotten
it, I can tell you, sir."

"Well, it was one or the other," observed Green. "Tell me what brought
you to this out-of-the-way place?"

"Couldn't help it, sir--ship cast ashore, and I was the only one to get
to land alive, and have been living here ever since; but, if so be the
captain will ship me aboard, I'll enter at once."

As Jerry was a prime hand, the offer was not likely to be refused, and
he was entered accordingly.

A boat with several officers visited the shore, making their way, not
without difficulty, through the floating breakwater of seaweed. The
inhabitants, consisting of about forty men, women, and children,
gathered on the beach to welcome them in front of their little
stone-boxes of dwellings which were scattered about here and there.
They appeared to be a primitive race, the descendants of two old
men-of-war's men, who, having been discharged from the service at the
end of the last century, had lived there ever since with wives whom they
had brought from the Cape, their respective children and grandchildren
having intermarried. Their wealth consisted in bullocks and flocks of
sheep, which, having increased in the same proportion as their owners,
were now very numerous. Their carcases, as well as the skins and wool,
were exchanged for such luxuries as they required with the