g our shipwrecked
friend merrily dancing on the waves at the back of the surf, leaping
more than breast-high above the surface, and looking in all
directions, first for his paddle, and then for his catamaran. Having
recovered his oar, he next swam, as he best could, through the broken
surf to his raft, mounted it like a hero, and once more addressed
himself to his task.

By this time, as the current always runs fast along the shore, he had
drifted several hundred yards to the northward farther from his point.
At the second attempt to penetrate the surf, he seemed to have made a
small miscalculation, for the sea broke so very nearly over him,
before he had time to quit his catamaran and dive into still water,
that we thought he must certainly have been drowned. Not a whit,
however, did he appear to have suffered, for we soon saw him again
swimming to his rude vessel. Many times in succession was he thus
washed off and sent whirling towards the beach, and as often obliged
to dive head foremost through the waves. But at last, after very
nearly an hour of incessant struggling, and the loss of more than a
mile of distance, he succeeded, for the first time, in reaching the
back of the surf, without having parted company either with his paddle
or with his catamaran. After this it became all plain sailing; he soon
paddled off to the Roads, and placed the Admiral's letter in the first
lieutenant's hands as dry as if it had been borne in a despatch-box
across the court-yard of the Admiralty.

I remember one day, when on board the Minden, receiving a note from
the shore by a catamaran lad, whom I told to wait for an answer. Upon
this he asked for a rope, with which, as soon as it was given him, he
made his little vessel fast, and lay down to sleep in the full blaze
of a July sun. One of his arms and one of his feet hung in the water,
though a dozen sharks had been seen cruising round the ship. A tacit
contract, indeed, appears to exist between the sharks and these
people, for I never saw, nor can I remember ever having heard of any
injury done by one to the other. By the time my answer was written,
the sun had dried up the spray on the poor fellow's body, leaving such
a coating of salt, that he looked as if he had been dusted with flour.
A few fanams--a small copper coin--were all his charge, and three or
four broken biscuits in addition sent him away the happiest of
mortals.

It is matter of considerable surprise to every one