ts, however well meant and kindly they might be, were, under the
circumstances, quite unnecessary, seeing that the child was sound
asleep. The captain then dried his head and face with a towel about as
rough as the mainsail of a seventy-four, and with a violence that would
have rubbed the paint off the figurehead of the _Red Eric_. Then he sat
down to his chart, and having pondered over it for some minutes, he went
to the foot of the companion-ladder and roared up--"Lay the course
nor'-nor'-east-and-by-nor'-half-nor', Mr Millons."

To which Mr Millons replied in an ordinary tone, "Ay, ay, sir," and
then roared--"Lay her head nor'-nor'-east-and-by-nor'-half-nor'," in an
unnecessarily loud and terribly fierce tone of voice to the steersman,
as if that individual were in the habit of neglecting to obey orders,
and required to be perpetually threatened in what may be called a tone
of implication.

The steersman answered in what, to a landsman, would have
sounded as a rather amiable and forgiving tone of
voice--"Nor'-nor'-east-and-by-nor'-half-nor' it is, sir;" and thereupon
the direction of the ship's head was changed, and the _Red Eric_,
according to Tim Rokens, "bowled along" with a stiff breeze on the
quarter, at the rate of ten knots, for the west coast of Africa.

CHAPTER NINE.

RAMBLES ON SHORE, AND STRANGE THINGS AND CEREMONIES WITNESSED THERE.

Variety is charming. No one laying claim to the smallest amount of that
very uncommon attribute, common-sense, will venture to question the
truth of that statement. Variety is so charming that men and women,
boys and girls, are always, all of them, hunting after it. To speak
still more emphatically on this subject, we venture to affirm that it is
an absolute necessity of animal nature. Were any positive and
short-sighted individual to deny this position, and sit down during the
remainder of his life in a chair and look straight before him, in order
to prove that he could live without variety, he would seek it in change
of position. If he did not do that, he would seek it in change of
thought. If he did not do _that_, he would die!

Fully appreciating this great principle of our nature, and desiring to
be charmed with a little variety, Tim Rokens and Phil Briant presented
themselves before Captain Dunning one morning about a week after the
storm, and asked leave to go ashore. The reader may at first think the
men were mad, but he will change his opinion when