r one of toil, had tinged his hair; and though (to
judge from his sad and thoughtful mien,) life seemed protracted longer
than he wished, his career, I learned by hints, had not been without
excitement to himself, and could not be recited without interest and
instruction to others. The old man was short and stout, and little gray
eyes twinkled beneath an intellectual forehead, scarred by a sabre
wound. After I had watched him with attention for some time, his
firmly-compressed lips and sombre countenance showed the solidity of his
character, and no weak point at which I might attack him with an
observation. Sailor, who had been reclining in his hutch, disliking to
wet his hide, and who was still labouring from the ill effects of the
Danish brown bread, now came forth to stretch himself; and, seeing a
man, unknown, standing by the compass-box, approached, and, with all the
diffidence of his tribe, determined to form no friendship, without
previously ascertaining whence he came, and what his business was.
Sailor therefore walked with resolution up to the man, and smelt his
coat. The dog also applied his nose to a little bundle tied with a dark
silk handkerchief stowed unintrusively away between the pumps; and then,
turning round, he looked up at me, and wagged his tail. I could almost
see a smile upon his face. The old man laughed, and said, half nettled
by Sailor's contemptuous way of smelling his whole wardrobe, "Dat is von
vine dog."

Though the allusion to the dog's well-proportioned form, or extreme
sagacity, was one which answered itself, I replied,

"Yes; and that is the way he makes friends."

"I know, I know," he answered, "if von maan's schmell vosh as goot, ve
shoult schmell de tief vary shoon."

"True; but if we are fond of sweet scents, and had to judge virtue and
vice by smell, we should very soon leave off smelling, or leave the
world."

He did not seem to comprehend my meaning, for a vague expression of
neither assent nor dissent passed over his countenance. He now, however,
became talkative, and told me he commenced life by entering the Danish
navy, and had been present in many engagements. Travelling from one end
of the world to the other, though seated together under the gig's keel,
and wrapped in tarpaulin, we contrived to meet in the West Indies; and
the old sailor's heart opened towards me as I spoke of scenes and things
familiar to him in his youth. I told him how I had been going "up and
down