stray grains of
enlightenment concerning their management they might perchance drop on to
by appealing to persons they come in contact with. Accordingly, one of
them approaches me, the only passenger aboard, except some Hindoos
returning home from a visit to the Colinderies, and asks me if I
understand anything about mules. I modestly own up to having reared,
broken, driven, and generally handled mules in the West, whereat the
officer is much pleased, and proceeds to unburden his mind concerning the
animals aboard the ship. "Fine young mules," he says they are, and in
reply to a question of what the government of India is importing mules
from Europe for, instead of raising them in India, he says he thinks they
must be intended for breeding purposes.

Understanding well enough that all this is quite natural and excusable in
a sea-faring man, I succeed in checking a rising smile, and gently, but
firmly, convince the officer of the erroneousness of this conclusion. The
officer is delighted to find a person possessing so complete a knowledge
of mules, and I am henceforth regarded as the oracle on this particular
subject, and the person to be consulted in regard to sundry things they
don't quite understand.

Between the two-inch plank and the awning overhead is a space of about
three feet; the mate says he is a trifle misty as to how a sixteen-hand
mule can leap through this small space without touching either the plank
or the awning; "and yet," he says, "there is hardly a mule on board that
has not performed this seemingly miraculous feat over and over again, and
a good many of them, make a practice of doing it every night." This
jumping mania makes him feel uneasy every night, the mate goes on to
explain, for fear some of the reckless and "light-heeled cusses" should
make a mistake and jump over the bulwarks into the sea; the bulwarks are
no higher than the plank, yet, while half the mules were found outside
the plank every morning, none of them had happened to jump outside the
bulwarks so far. Many of the mules, he says, were putting in most of
their time bulldozing their fellows, and doing their best to make their
life unbearable, and the downtrodden specimens seem so desperately scared
of the bulldozers that he expects to see some of them jump overboard from
sheer fright and desperation.

At this juncture we are joined by another officer, and the mate joyfully
informs him that I am a man who knows more about mules th