ing's
ship. Well, I've one comfort left--Sir Walter Scott has never succeeded
in making a hero; or, in other words, his best characters are not those
which commonly go under the designation of "the hero." I am afraid
there is something irreclaimably insipid in these _preux chevaliers_.

But I must go in search of the _Aspasia_. There she is, with
studding-sails set, about fifty miles to the northward of the Cape of
Good Hope; and I think that when the reader has finished this chapter,
he will be inclined to surmise that the author, as well as the
_Aspasia_, has most decidedly "doubled the Cape." The frigate was
standing her course before a light breeze, at the rate of four or five
knots an hour, and Captain M--- was standing at the break of the
gangway, talking with the first-lieutenant, when the man stationed at
the mast-head called out, "A rock on the lee-bow!" The Telemaque shoal,
which is supposed to exist somewhere to the southward of the Cape, but
whose situation has never been ascertained, had just before been the
subject of their conversation. Startled at the intelligence, Captain
M--- ordered the studding-sails to be taken in, and, hailing the man at
the mast-head, inquired how far the rock was distant from the ship.

"I can see it off the fore-yard," answered Pearce, the master, who had
immediately ascended the rigging upon the report.

The first-lieutenant now went aloft, and soon brought it down to the
lower ratlines. In a few minutes it was distinctly seen from the deck
of the frigate.

The ship's course was altered three or four points, that no risk might
be incurred; and Captain M---, directing the people aloft to keep a
sharp look-out for any change in the colour of the water, continued to
near the supposed danger in a slanting direction.

The rock appeared to be about six or seven feet above the water's edge,
with a base of four or five feet in diameter. To the great surprise of
all parties, there was no apparent change in colour to indicate that
they shoaled their water; and it was not until they hove-to within two
cables' length, and the cutter was ordered to be cleared away to examine
it, that they perceived that the object of their scrutiny was in motion.
This was now evident, and in a direction crossing the stern of the
ship.

"I think that it is some kind of fish," observed Seymour; "I saw it
raise its tail a little out of the water."

And such it proved to be, as it shortly afterw