red before the nut was quite
ripe, the juice poured out, and _Arrack_ substituted in its place. Our
next place of stopping was Madras, where we took in more cargo, but no
more cocoa-nuts, as no fruit-boats put off to us, the weather being too
rough to admit of it.

We had now been at sea several weeks, and had many among our crew and
passengers upon the sick-list. Of the former, was a young man on his first
voyage. He had been ill more than a week, and there being no physician on
board, there was little or nothing done for him. At length he became
delirious at intervals; and during the whole of the last night of his
existence he made the most piercing and heart-rending cries; calling
incessantly for his mother and sister, and lamenting that he should never
see them more. Poor fellow! before the next night he was sewed up in his
hammock, with a couple of shot at his feet; prayers were read over him,
and in the presence of his silent and pensive ship-mates, he was consigned
to the ocean, that vast and sublime grave of countless millions of our
race. Several weeks after this occurrence, one of the passengers, a
Frenchman, died of the consumption, and was buried in the same way; and
had not the subject been of too serious a nature, the event would have
partaken somewhat of the ludicrous. As usual, the shot was placed at the
feet of the dead body, but proved to be insufficient to sink it. The
consequence was, that the head and shoulders remained above the surface,
bobbing up and down, until we lost sight of it in the distance. The
captain's clerk always officiated as Chaplain at the funerals and divine
service; which latter, by the way, was more of a farce than any thing
else; for I have known more than one instance where they have been
interrupted in the very midst by a squall of wind. Then to see the hubbub;
the congregation dispersed; some ordered aloft, with such pious (though
sometimes more forcible) ejaculations as: 'Lay aloft there, you lubbers!
D--n your bloods! I'll see your back-bones! I'll set the cat at you!' etc.

We now approached the Cape of Good Hope. The weather became lowering; and
as the day advanced, heavy masses of black clouds gradually arose above
the horizon, and palled the sky. Night came on suddenly, and with it the
threatened storm in all its fury. The darkness was as it were the
quintessence of an ink-bottle. _Nothing_ could be seen, save when the
lightning gleamed, or when the rockets which were