o look after them, while he found enough to do in looking after the
packet.

"I dare say," added the fellow, with rather more dryness of humour
than we had imagined was in his doughy composition, "I dare say the
whole story you are asking about, of Buonaparte and the Russians, is
told very exactly in these bags (pointing to the mail), and if I
deliver them safe at Rio, it will be wrong to say I bring no news."

On the 4th of June we had a jollification in honour of good old King
George the Third's birthday. In how many different parts of the world,
and with what deep and affectionate sincerity, were cups quaffed and
cheers rung out in the same loyal cause! If sailors would tell the
truth, we should find that when abroad and far away, they generally
use their distant friends as the captain, mentioned some time ago, did
his ship's company's European clothing--stow them away for a future
occasion. I do not say that they forget or neglect their friends; they
merely put them by in safety for a time. In fact, as the song says, a
sailor's heart and soul have plenty to do "in every port," to keep
fully up to the companionships which are present, without moping and
moaning over the remembrance of friends at a distance, who, in like
manner no doubt, unship us also, more or less, from their thoughts, if
not from their memory, for the time being; and it is all right and
proper that it should be so.

On the 5th of June we parted from our convoy, the China ships; and,
alas! many a good dinner we lost by that separation. Our course lay
more to the left, or eastward, as we wished to look in at the Cape of
Good Hope, while those great towering castles, the tea ships, could
not afford time for play, but struck right down to the southward, in
search of the westerly winds which were to sweep them half round the
globe, and enable them to fetch the entrance of the China seas in time
to save the monsoon to Canton. Each ship sent a boat to us with
letters for England, to be forwarded from the Cape. This was probably
their last chance for writing home; so that, after the accounts
contained in these dispatches reached England, their friends would
hear nothing of them till they presented themselves eighteen months
afterwards. Neither did they expect to know what was passing at home
till they should touch at St. Helena, on the return voyage, in the
latter end of the following year.

I remember looking over the lee-gangway next day, at the firs