he's a sixty-four gun ship; I've seen
her often enough at Spithead, but I forget now whether she was in the
first of June[4] or not."

"Then I 'spose she was convoying the craft that Paul was in," observed
another blue-jacket.

This knotty point being satisfactorily cleared up, the reader proceeded:
"And when the south wind blew softly, supposing they had obtained their
purpose, loosing thence, they sailed close by Crete."

"Now you see," said the boatswain, "just so sure as you have gentle
breezes from the south'ard, you'll have a thundering Levanter at the
back of 'em."

"Yes, yes," said a tar, "I know that to my sorrow. I was up the Straits
last v'y'ge, 'way up to Smyrna and Zante, arter reasons,[5] and we
ketch'd one of these thundering Levanters, and was druv 'way to h--ll,
away up the Gulf of Venus (Venice); yes, I've been boxing about the Arch
of the Billy Goat[6] 'most too long, not to know a little so'thin' about
the weather there."

The reader continued: "But not long after, there arose against it a
tempestuous wind."

"There," said Jones, "didn't I tell you so? I knowed you'd have a real
sneezer in a varse or two."

"Called Euroclydon," continued the reader, finishing the verse.

"What! avast there! overhaul that last word again."

"A tempestuous wind called Euroclydon," repeated the reader.

"Well, you may call it a Rock-me-down, but I say the regular-built name
on't is Levanter; but then I s'pose them thunderin' printers puts in any
thing they're a mind to."

The reading proceeded without much more interruption, except that the
honest tars, who had been up the Mediterranean, were not a little
puzzled by the strange names of places, and could not imagine what part
of the world the saint had got into.

"About midnight the shipmen deemed that they drew near to some country;
and sounded, and found it twenty fathoms; and when they had gone a
little further, they sounded again, and found it fifteen fathoms."

"Egad, I should think they was drawin' nigh to some country pretty
thunderin' fast too, when they shoalened their water so quick, from
twenty to fifteen faddom."

"Then fearing lest they should have fallen upon rocks, they cast four
anchors out of the stern, and wished for day."

"Four anchors out of the starn!" shouted the boatswain, "what the h--was
that for?"

"Why, you see," said the reader, "they used to bring up by the head or
starn in them days--it didn't make a ropeyarn's odds wh