fur yer sisther if we're 'lowed ashore afore we
lave."

"I don't think you will be able to do that," said the signalman, who had
remained alongside of us looking at the darkeys passing to and fro on
the jetty below, from which a gangway of planks led through one of the
midship ports to the coal-bunkers. "We're not likely to stop here after
we've coaled ship."

Mr Jones was mistaken, however; for we remained at Santa Cruz some
four-and-twenty hours longer, so that Mick and I had the opportunity of
landing with the wardroom steward the next morning, when he went to buy
some fresh milk and other things for the officers' mess.

We then, during a short walk we had in the vicinity of the town, saw
numbers of canaries flitting about amid the trees, just like you see
sparrows at home; and it seemed very strange, to me especially,
accustomed as I was to mother's bird-shop and its live stock, that the
little things should be uncaged and roaming about there free, at their
own will and pleasure!

The birds, though, did not have anything like the bright plumage of
those bred in captivity at home; and I would have backed, so far as
their looks went, a splendid little chap Jenny had called `Tubby,'
against the lot of them; while `Corry,' another canary of a more
reflective character and retiring disposition than the first, could have
afforded a dust of the golden hue of his feathers to make his
Teneriffean cousins more presentable without being much less yellow
himself--their hue, so far as Mick and I noticed, being more of a dingy
white than chrome.

As to bringing any of them to England, however, that we found an
impossibility; for there were so many young midshipmen and other
youngsters aboard the various ships of the squadron, that if all of them
had been free to take birds into their cabins, the ships would have been
so many floating aviaries!

So, to prevent this, the commodore had issued strict orders that no pets
of any description were to be taken on board by any one.

"I s'pose, though, my corns don't count," observed the wardroom steward,
as we were stepping into the boat on our return to the ship and one of
his assistants trod on his foot. "I've a favourite one on my starboard
toe, Smith, as might be called a pet o' mine; and, by jingo, you lubber,
you just then made marmalade of it. You wait till we get aboard and
I'll put you on short rations! See if I don't!"

Later on in the afternoon the squadron sailed