iking for the marines, who
caressed and fed him, and sometimes even ventured to teach him to play
off tricks on Jack, which the sailors promised one day to pay back
with interest on the soldiers. In so diminutive a vessel as a ten-gun
brig, there is but a small party of marines, merely a sergeant's
guard, and no commissioned officer, otherwise I hardly think the
following trick would have been attempted.

One Sunday, while going the formal division rounds, I came to a figure
which at first sight puzzled me not a little. This was no other than
our great traveller, the monkey, rigged out as a marine, and planted
like a sentry on the middle step of the short ladder, which, in
deep-waisted vessels, is placed at the gangway, and reaches from the
deck to the top of the bulwark. The animal was dressed up in a
complete suit of miniature uniform, made chiefly of the coloured
buntin used for flags with sundry bits of red baize purloined from the
carpenters. His regimental cap was constructed out of painted canvas;
and under his lower jaw had been forced a stock of pump-leather, so
stiff in itself, and so tightly drawn back, that his head was rendered
totally immoveable. His chin, and great part of the cheeks, had been
shaved with so much care, that only two small curled mustachios and a
respectable pair of whiskers remained. His hair behind being tied back
tightly into a queue, the poor devil's eyes were almost starting from
his head; while the corners of his mouth being likewise tugged towards
the ears by the hair-dresser's operations, the expression of his
countenance became irresistibly ludicrous. The astonished recruit's
elbows were then brought in contact and fastened behind by a lashing,
passed round and secured to the middle step of the ladder, so that he
could not budge an inch from his position. One of the ship's pistols,
fashioned like a musket, and strapped to his shoulder, was tied to his
left hand, which again had been sewed by the sail-maker to the
waistband of his beautifully pipe-clayed trousers; in short, he was
rigged up as a complete sea-soldier in full uniform.

As the captain and his train approached, the monkey began to tremble
and chatter; but the men, not knowing how their chief might relish the
joke, looked rather grave, while, I own, it cost me no small official
struggle to keep down a laugh. I did succeed, however, and merely
said, in passing, "You should not play these tricks upon travellers;
cast hi