ast eatable.

The biscuit-barrel was soon fished up out of the water, and placed high
and dry upon the little raft.

Snowball was next struck with the necessity of improving the quality of
his craft, by giving it increase both in size and strength. With this
intention--after having possessed himself of an oar, out of several that
were adrift--he commenced paddling about among the floating fragments,
here and there picking up such pieces as appeared best suited to his
purpose.

In a short while he succeeded in collecting a sufficient number of spars
and other pieces of timber,--among which figured a portion of his own
old tenement, the caboose,--to form a raft as large as he might require;
and to his great satisfaction he saw around him the very things that
would render it _seaworthy_. Bobbing about on the waves, and at no
great distance, were half a dozen empty water-casks. There had been too
many of them aboard the slaver: since their emptiness was the original
cause of the catastrophe that had ensued. But there were not too many
for Snowball's present purpose; and, after paddling first to one and
then another, he secured each in turn, and lashed them to his raft, in
such fashion, that the great hogsheads, sitting higher in the water than
the timbers of the raft, formed a sort of parapet around it.

This task accomplished, he proceeded to collect from the wreck such
other articles as he fancied might be of service to him; and, thus
occupied, he spent several days on the spot where the _Pandora_ had gone
to pieces.

The slight breezes that arose from time to time, and again subsided, had
not separated his raft from the other objects still left floating near.
In whatever direction they went, so went he: since all were drifting
together.

The idea had never occurred to the negro to set up a sail and endeavour
to get away from the companionship of the inanimate objects around
him,--souvenirs as they were of a fearful disaster. Or rather it had
occurred to him, and was rejected as unworthy of being entertained.
Snowball, without knowing much of the theory of navigation, had
sufficient practical acquaintance with the great Atlantic Ocean,--
especially that part of it where lies the track of the dreaded "middle
passage,"--long remembered by the transported slave,--Snowball, I say,
was sufficiently acquainted with his present whereabouts, to know that a
sail set upon his raft, and carrying him hither and thither, w