, the doctor and I, and Spratt and Tommy Bigg,
were the only ones of the ship's company who took the trouble to attend.
Some kept away, they said, because the captain did not encourage the
movement; and others had no better reason to offer than that as they
never had had to attend services at sea, they did not know why they
should now begin. Broom said that he didn't come to sea to have to go
to church; and Sills remarked that, as the captain did not patronise the
affair, he did not think it right for the officers to do so, and he
wondered how we ventured to be so mutinous. Now, strange as it may
seem, these are in no degree more absurd or more contemptible than the
kind of excuses offered constantly by people on shore for not attending
religious worship; in other words, for not offering up their meed of
adoration, for not praying to that great and good Being from whom we all
receive our existence and everything we enjoy in this world, and in
whose presence and sight we can alone hope to enjoy happiness in the
life to come. Mr Vernon, however, persevered; and Sunday after Sunday
fresh members, if not converts, were added to his little congregation,
till even Sills and the rough Waller, and the still rougher boatswain,
occasionally appeared among them.

We had, for the sake of obtaining the north-east trade-wind, kept closer
to the coast of Africa than usual; and whether it was from keeping too
much to the eastward, or that for some reason the wind did not reach
that point, we found the breeze fail us, and the sails began to flap
lazily against the masts. There we lay day after day with the hot sun
beating down on our heads, making the pitch in the seams of the decks
boil and bubble, and drawing up dense masses of steam from the damp and
crowded berths below.

One day observing the doctor looking graver than usual, I inquired, as
he was passing along the deck, "What is the matter, doctor?"

"Fever has broken out among these poor people, in consequence, it is
pretty evident, of the measures I advised not having been taken at
Madeira; and if something is not done to get the ship to rights,
one-half of them may be carried off," he replied, with some bitterness
in his tone.

"What ought to be done?" I asked.

"Put into port and land the passengers," he replied. "A bad
commencement is certain to cause a great deal of trouble. Had we put
back to Plymouth the ship might at once have been, set to rights, and we
shou