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Fayaway against any beauty in the world
Mehevi 200
About midnight I arose and drew the slide 256

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CHAPTER I

The sea--Longings for shore--A land-sick ship--Destination of the
voyagers.

Six months at sea! Yes, reader, as I live, six months out of sight of
land; cruising after the sperm whale beneath the scorching sun of the
Line, and tossed on the billows of the wide-rolling Pacific--the sky above,
the sea around, and nothing else! Weeks and weeks ago our fresh provisions
were all exhausted. There is not a sweet potato left; not a single yam.
Those glorious bunches of bananas which once decorated our stern and
quarter-deck, have, alas, disappeared! and the delicious oranges which
hung suspended from our tops and stays--they, too, are gone! Yes, they are
all departed, and there is nothing left us but salt-horse and sea-biscuit.

Oh! for a refreshing glimpse of one blade of grass--for a snuff at the
fragrance of a handful of the loamy earth! Is there nothing fresh around
us? Is there no green thing to be seen? Yes, the inside of our bulwarks is
painted green; but what a vile and sickly hue it is, as if nothing bearing
even the semblance of verdure could flourish this weary way from land.
Even the bark that once clung to the wood we use for fuel has been gnawed
off and devoured by the captain's pig; and so long ago, too, that the pig
himself has in turn been devoured.

There is but one solitary tenant in the chicken-coop, once a gay and
dapper young cock, bearing him so bravely among the coy hens. But look at
him now; there he stands, moping all the day long on that everlasting one
leg of his. He turns with disgust from the mouldy corn before him, and the
brackish water in his little trough. He mourns no doubt his lost
companions, literally snatched from him one by one, and never seen again.
But his days of mourning will be few; for Mungo, our black cook, told me
yesterday that the word had at last gone forth, and poor Pedro's fate was
sealed. His attenuated body will be laid out upon the captain's table next
Sunday, and long before night will be buried, with all the usual
ceremonies, beneath that worthy individual's vest. Who would b