tride a spar; which also carries a sail,
partially reefed around it, and partially permitted to drag loosely
through the water.

At a glance a sailor could have told that the spar on which they are
supported is a topsail-yard, which has been detached from its masts in
such a violent manner as to unloose some of the reefs that had held the
sail--partially releasing the canvas. But it needed not a sailor to
tell why this had been done. A ship has foundered somewhere near coast.
There has been a gale two days before. The spar in question, with
those supported upon it, is but a fragment of the wreck. There might
have been other fragments, other of the crew escaped, or escaping in
like manner, but there are no others in sight. The castaways slowly
drifting towards the sandspit are alone. They have no companions on the
ocean, no spectators on its shore.

As already stated, there are four of them. Three are strangely alike,
at least, in the particulars of size, shape, and costume. In age, too,
there is no great difference. All three are boys: the eldest not over
eighteen, the youngest certainly not a year his junior.

In the physiognomy of the three there is similitude enough to declare
them of one nation, though dissimilarity sufficient to prove a distinct
provinciality both in countenance and character. Their dresses of dark
blue cloth, cut pea-jacket shape, and besprinkled with buttons of
burnished yellow, their cloth caps of like colour, encircled by bands of
gold lace, their collars, embroidered with the crown and anchor, declare
them, all three, to be officers in the service of that great maritime
Government that has so long held undisputed possession of the sea--
midshipmen of the British navy. Rather should we say, had been. They
have lost this proud position, along with the frigate to which they had
been attached; and they now only share authority upon a dismasted spar,
over which they are exerting some control, since with their bodies bent
downwards, and their hands beating the water, they are propelling it in
the direction of the sandspit.

In the countenances of the three castaways thus introduced, I have
admitted a dissimilitude something more than casual; something more,
even, than what might be termed provincial. Each presented a type that
could have been referred to that wider distinction known as a
nationality.

The three "middies" astride of that topsail-yard were, of course,
castaways from