been delighted with the view from the saluting battery; and if you have
not you had better go there as soon as you can. From the saluting
battery you may look up the harbour, and see much of what I have
described at Plymouth; the scenery is different, but similar arsenals
and dockyards, and an equal portion of our stupendous navy are to be
found there; and you will see Gosport on the other side of the harbour,
and Sallyport close to you; besides a great many other places, which,
from the saluting battery, you cannot see. And then there is Southsea
Beach to your left. Before you, Spithead, with the men-of-war, and the
Motherbank crowded with merchant vessels; and there is the buoy where
the _Royal George_ was wrecked and where she still lies, the fish
swimming in and out of her cabin windows but that is not all; you can
also see the Isle of Wight,--Ryde with its long wooden pier, and Cowes,
where the yachts lie. In fact there is a great deal to be seen at
Portsmouth as well as at Plymouth; but what I wish you particularly to
see just now is a vessel holding fast to the buoy just off the saluting
battery. She is a cutter; and you may know that she belongs to the
Preventive Service by the number of gigs and galleys which she has
hoisted up all round her. She looks like a vessel that was about to
sail with a cargo of boats; two on deck, one astern, one on each side of
her. You observe that she is painted black, and all her boats are
white. She is not such an elegant vessel as the yacht, and she is much
more lumbered up. She has no haunches of venison hanging over the
stern! But I think there is a leg of mutton and some cabbages hanging
by their stalks. But revenue-cutters are not yachts. You will find no
turtle or champagne; but, nevertheless, you will, perhaps, find a joint
to carve at, a good glass of grog, and a hearty welcome.

Let us go on board. You observe the guns are iron, and painted black,
and her bulwarks are painted red; it is not a very becoming colour, but
then it lasts a long while, and the dockyard is not very generous on the
score of paint--or lieutenants of the navy troubled with much spare
cash. She has plenty of men, and fine men they are; all dressed in red
flannel shirts and blue trousers; some of them have not taken off their
canvas or tarpaulin petticoats, which are very useful to them, as they
are in the boats night and day, and in all weathers. But we will at
once go down into the c