I must conclude this brief character
of him by one additional trait. A more pious Christian, but without
presbyterianism, did not exist than Captain Eliab. He attributed all his
good fortune to the blessing of Providence; and if any man was an
example that virtue, even in this life, has its reward, it was Captain
Eliab. In dangers common to many, he had repeatedly almost alone
escaped.

I had no other companion but the worthy Captain: I was his only
passenger, and we passed much of our time in the reading of his voyages,
of which he had kept an ample journal. His education having been rude
and imperfect, the style of his writing was more forcible than pure or
correct. I thought his account so interesting, and in many points so
important, that I endeavoured to persuade him to give it to the public;
and to induce him to it, offered to assist him, during our voyage, in
putting it into form. The worthy man accepted my offer, but I found that
I had undertaken a work to which I was unequal. I laboured, however,
incessantly, and before our arrival had completed so much of it, as to
induce the Captain to put it into the hands of a bookseller, by whom, as
I have since understood, it was transferred into the hands of a literary
gentleman to complete. In some misfortune the manuscript has been lost;
and the Captain being in America, there is probably an end of it for
ever. All I can now say is, that the public have sustained an important
loss.

In this employment our voyage, upon my part at least, passed
unperceived, and I was at Liverpool, before I was well sensible that I
had left America. Nothing is more tedious than a sea voyage, age, to
those whose minds, are intent only upon their passage. In travelling by
land, the mind is recreated by variety, and relieved by the novelty of
the successive objects which pass before it; but in a voyage by sea, it
is inconceivable how wearisome are the sameness and uniformity, which,
day after day, meet the eye. When I could not otherwise occupy my mind,
I endeavoured to force myself into a doze, that I might have a chance of
a dream. One of the best rules of philosophy is, that happiness is an
art--a science--a habit and quality of mind, which self-management may
in a great degree command and procure. Experience has taught me that
this is true. I had made many sea voyages before this, and therefore had
repeated proofs of the observation of Lord Bacon, that, of all human
progresses, nothin