ng to the caprice of the hour, or the
chances of an advantageous market. For protection against pirates, and
against the attacks of the fierce and savage tribes with whom they
frequently come in collision, they are well armed and manned. The
precaution is no idle one, nor could it possibly be dispensed with. "Few
of these trading vessels ever return with their cargoes to the coast of
the Americas, China, the Sandwich Islands, or Australia, without having
frequent fights with the savages, and there are some of them, who have
reckless captains and crews on board, that never can end a trading
transaction with the natives without a row."

Whether reckless or not, fighting appears to be an every-day sport with
the warlike pearl-seekers of the Pacific--one which the meekest and most
amiable navigators cannot avoid sharing in. We infer this compelled
pugnacity from Dr Coulter's adventures when sailing in the Hound, a smart
brigantine commanded by the gallant Captain Trainer. For although the
doctor started as surgeon to the ship Stratford, and finally returned to
England in her, he was long an absentee from her state room, and cruising
on board the Hound. It happened thus. With a degree of thoughtlessness
hardly pardonable in one of his profession, he made a practice of sleeping
on deck, even when season and climate rendered such an exposed bed-place
highly insalubrious. The consequence was a severe attack of rheumatism,
and on making the coast of California he was fain to land, and take up his
abode in a Roman Catholic Mission-house. The ship was ready for sea, bound
to the far west for whales but the doctor was by no means in a like state
of preparation, and the captain, seeing his crippled condition, urged him
to remain on shore. Captain Lock was a sort of amateur medico, who prided
himself on his Esculapian skill, and, although sorry to lose his surgeon's
society, he evidently rather chuckled at the idea of having an opportunity
to exercise his accomplishments. So Doctor Coulter allowed himself to be
persuaded, and making an appointment to meet the Stratford, _Deo volente_,
at Tahiti in the month of November, he remained under the care of the
Spanish _padre_ at the Mission, much to his own satisfaction, but probably
not quite so much to that of any unlucky mariner upon whose fractured limb
or diseased body Captain Lock may subsequently have found it necessary to
practise. And even the doctor, although the motion of the ship