fellow--and yet, considering
that he lives to tell the tale, we should rather congratulate than
pity--Beard was in command of a party of seven. Any one who knows the
service, knows that an officer accustomed to command a particular boat,
if he be a good fellow, acquires a strong fellow-feeling for and with
his men. This is but human nature, seeing that they are subject to
frequent and long isolations from the rest of the ship's company. I have
felt this influence strongly myself, and am persuaded that a sailor is
never so amiable a being as when away from his ship and from
civilisation, on some scrambling boat-expedition. He then puts off
altogether that selfishness of bearing which it often suits his humour
while on board to affect. Beard was one who entered fully into the
spirit of these expeditions; indeed he might have led one to suppose
that he would willingly have agreed to pass his life in a boat. On this
particular occasion they were coasting along Thessaly--those shores so
beautiful to look at, but of which the beauty, when the mists of night
descend upon them, reek with the breath of death. They proceeded
cautiously; and as their labours were protracted into new days and
weeks, and none of their little band had been stricken, they began to
hope, and perhaps to believe themselves seasoned and safe. The time for
them to rejoin the ship at last arrived, and not a man had been ill. One
man did indeed complain in the morning, but he laid in his oar, and they
hoped would soon be better. Presently another was forced to claim the
same exemption, and another. In short, they reached the ship with great
difficulty, and as by miracle, and not one of the party could mount the
side. They were all hoisted in, and in a few hours the only man of the
party who lived was my friend. In the pretty island of Sciathos is a
tomb, wherein sleep the whole party save that one. I have stood by this,
and read in the sad story of its inscription a sufficient warning on the
subject of marsh _malaria_. Once or twice I have come in its way, but
never willingly, and happily always without calamitous result. Once only
I have slept within its problematical range, and that was off that
pestiferous bit of coast near Epidaurus, and I fancy at a season when
the marshes had not their steam up.

We had among us a lesson, but not of this melancholy character, on the
absurdity of attempting to brave the daylight heat of summer. It is so
natural for an