landers), Oran, and Algiers. The middle of September mind. The name
of the brig was the _Granite_, and the skipper, Captain Marbles, a
Yorkshireman, was about the hardest commander I ever sailed under. He
never swore at the men,--that they wouldn't have much minded; but he was
always turning up the hands for punishment; and punishment in the
merchant service, thirty years ago, was little less severe than it was
in the navy. Indeed, it was often more unjust, and more cruel; for when
a merchant skipper flogged a man he was generally drunk, or in a
fearfully bad temper; whereas on board a man-o'-war a sailor was never
punished in cold blood, and had at least some show of a trial. I must
do Captain Marbles the credit to say that he was never half seas over;
but on the other hand he was always in a bad temper. On me he dared not
lay a finger, for I was an officer, and I would have knocked him down
with a marlinspike had he struck me; but he led the foremast-men and the
boys, of whom we had at least half a dozen aboard--principally, I fancy,
because the Captain liked to torture boys--a terrible life. Well, we
had discharged cargo at Marseilles, and taken in more at Barcelona. We
had put in at Gibraltar, and after clearing out from the Rock were
shaping our course with a pretty fair wind for Gran, when, one evening--
now what in the world do you think happened?

The swallow, you know, is a bird that, like our stork, cannot abide the
cold. He is glad enough to come and see us in summer, when the leaves
are green, and the sun shines brightly; but so soon as ever the weather
begins to grow chilly, off goes Mr Swallow to the Pyramids of Egypt, or
the Desert of Sahara, or some nice, warm, comfortable place of that
kind. He generally arrives in our latitudes about the second week in
April; and he cuts his stick again for hot winter quarters toward the
end of September. I've heard book-learned gentlemen say that the birds
almost always fly in a line, directly north and south, influenced, no
doubt, by the magnetic current which flows forever and ever in that
direction. Well, on the afternoon to which my yarn relates, our course
was due south, and, just before sunset, we saw a vast space of the sky
astern absolutely darkened by the largest flight of birds I ever saw,
winging their way together. As a rule, I've been told, the swallows
don't migrate in large flocks, but in small families. This, however,
must have been an exc