r ashore." He was sufficiently active, and remarkably
strong.

On her outward voyage the _Gauntlet_ had touched at Sierra Leone, and
shipped a gang of Kroomen, who proved as efficient as any part of the
ship's company. The head Krooman, a fine-looking fellow, rejoiced among
his shipmates in the name of Tom Kettle while his mate was christened
Bill Saucepan,--names to which they willingly answered,--while on the
rest of the gang similar names were bestowed. The men of the tribe to
which they belonged are infinitely superior to all others of the West
Coast, and every man-of-war employed on the station has been for long
accustomed to receive a party of them on board to perform the severer
labours of the ship, under which English seamen, in that climate, would
not fail to suffer. Their dress is that of ordinary seamen, and they
are particularly clean and neat in their persons, while they receive the
same rations as the other seamen; indeed, they are treated in all
respects like the rest of the crew, except that they mess by themselves,
and are under the immediate command of their head man and his mate.
They are good-natured, merry fellows, as brave as lions, active and
intelligent, and always ready to perform the most dangerous and
fatiguing duties without grumbling. Tom Kettle and his men were
therefore great favourites on board. Black Tom, as he was generally
called by the midshipmen, soon became great friends with his namesake
and his companions, who treated him with the respect which was his due,
and consequently won his affections.

He had nothing of Captain Marryat's Mesty about him. He did not pretend
to be the son of a prince, or to have any wrongs to avenge; on the
contrary, his boast was that his father and grandfather were seamen
before him, who had ever proved true to their colours; and he was
prouder of that than he would have been of being allied to the greatest
potentate under the line.

Jack was on the alert himself, and kept everybody else on board on the
alert, in the hopes, by some means or other, of inflicting a heavy blow
on the abominable slave-trade, for he felt as much interest in the
matter as did the old commodore himself. It reconciled him completely
to being compelled to command a steamer, which formerly, with the
feelings of the old school, he had looked upon as a somewhat derogatory
employment. Night and day the brightest lookout was kept, and every
suspicious dhow chased and boarde