e so large,
perhaps, as ours on board; their weights and measures are different. I
took out most of the valuables into the brig I commanded--about 20,000
sequins--carpets--and among the rest, this cask of otto of roses, which
we had smelt three miles off. We had it safe on board, when the mate of
the hold, not slinging it properly, it fell into the spirit-room with a
run, and was stove to pieces. Never was such a scene; my first
lieutenant and several men on deck fainted; and the men in the hold were
brought up lifeless; it was some time before they were recovered. We let
the water into the brig, and pumped it out, but nothing would take away
the smell, which was so overpowering, that before I could get to Malta I
had forty men on the sick list. When I arrived there, I turned the mate
out of the service for his carelessness. It was not until after having
smoked the brig, and finding that of little use, after having sunk her
for three weeks, that the smell was at all bearable; but even then it
could never be eradicated, and the admiral sent the brig home, and she
was sold out of the service. They could do nothing with her at the
dockyards. She was broken up, and bought by the people at Brighton and
Tunbridge Wells, who used her timbers for turning fancy articles, which,
smelling as they did, so strongly of otto of roses, proved very
profitable. Were you ever at Brighton, Mr Simple?"

"Never, sir."

Just at this moment, the officer of the watch came down to say that
there was a very large shark under the counter, and wished to know if
the captain had any objection to the officers attempting to catch it.

"By no means," replied Captain Kearney; "I hate sharks as I do the
devil. I nearly lost L14,000 by one, when I was in the Mediterranean."

"May I inquire how, Captain Kearney?" said the first lieutenant, with a
demure face; "I'm very anxious to know."

"Why the story is simply this," replied the captain. "I had an old
relation at Malta, whom I found out by accident--an old maid of sixty,
who had lived all her life on the island. It was by mere accident that I
knew of her existence. I was walking upon Strada Reale, when I saw a
large baboon that was kept there, who had a little fat pug-dog by the
tail, which he was pulling away with him, while an old lady was
screaming out for help: for whenever she ran to assist her dog, the
baboon made at her as if he would have ravished her, and caught her by
the petticoats with on