rd itself was a splendid
mortuary epic for French aspirations generally.

Then comes something vigorous from one "Jack Lee-Cork," who writes:--

"The tomb of Napoleon we visit to-day,
And trod on the spot where the tyrant lay;
That his equal again may never appear,
'Twill be sincerely prayed for many a year."

The masters and officers of some of the whale-ships touching at St.
Helena seem to have made pilgrimages to Longwood. Mr. William Miller,
master of the barque _Hope_, of New Bedford, writes that he "visited the
remains of the greatest warrior of the day, interred for twenty years."
Then he breaks out into these noble lines:--

"Here lies the warrior, bravest of the brave,
Visited by Miller, God the Queen may save."

As a Britisher I shake your hand, William. When you wrote that, forty
years ago, American whaling or any other kind of skippers did not
particularly care about our nation; but you, William, were a white man.
How easily you might have said something nasty about us and made "brave"
rhyme with "grave"! But you were a real poet, and above hurting our
feelings.

Captain Miller was evidently accompanied by some of his crew, one of
whom contributes this gem of prose:--

"Louis F. Waldron, on bord the barke hope of nubedford, its boat steer,
has this day been to see honey's tomb; we are out 24 munts, with 13
hundred barils of sperm oil."

All greasy luck attend you, honest Louis, boatsteerer, in the shades
beyond. You wielded harpoon and lance better than the pen, and couldn't
write poetry. Your informing statement about the "ile" at once recalled
to memory an inscription upon the wooden head-board of the grave of
another boat-steerer which in 1873 was to be seen at Ponape, in the
Caroline Islands:--

"Sacred to Memory of Jno.
Hollis of sagharbour
boatsterer of ship Europa of new
Bedford who by will of
almity god died of four ribs stove in by a
off pleasant island north pacific
4.17.69."

Sailors love the full-blooded, exhaustive mortuary poem as well as any
one, and generally like to describe in detail the particular complaint
or accident from which a shipmate died. Miners, too, like it. Many years
ago, in a small mining camp on the Kirk River, in North Queensland, I
saw the following inscription painted on the head-board of the grave of
a miner who had fallen down a shaft:--

"Remember, men,