inents were in view. On such a day as this the first adventurers
must have crossed from Africa to Europe. Hero might almost have swum
across. Even Mr. Brownsmith of Eastchepe might rig a craft out of an
empty sugar hogshead, set up his walking-stick for mast, tie his
pocket-handkerchief to it for sail, and trust to the waves in
safety--that is, if Mr. Brownsmith of Eastchepe had in him the heart of
Raleigh, not of Bumble. Some men are born to be drivers of tram-cars,
some to be captains of corsairs. The pioneer of navigation must have
been cut out by nature to be a High-Admiral of bold buccaneers.

We were only five passengers on the steamer, and we amused ourselves
comparing notes. One told of a voyage from Barcelona to Alicante which
he had once undertaken. The first night out they lost a sailor; he was
seized with a fit and died; and then came the poser. When they would
arrive at Alicante and muster the crew for the inspection of the health
officers one would be wanting; suspicions would be aroused that he had
fallen a victim to contagious disease, and they ran the hazard of being
stuck into quarantine unless they could succeed in buying themselves off
with an exorbitant bribe. While they were in a quandary, a white head
popped above a gangway forward and a voice sang out:

"I'll get you out of the hole for a consideration."

"Who the deuce are you? Where did you spring from?" cried the skipper.

"A stowaway,--a flour-barrel. I'll parade as the dead man's substitute
for ten dollars and a square meal."

In the end they were glad to accept the impudent proposal; the corpse
was flung overboard, and the stowaway entered the port of Alicante an
honest British tar, looking the whole world in the face like
Longfellow's village blacksmith, and jingling ten dollars in his
pocket.

We passed by Barrosa, where Graham gave the French such a thrashing in
1811, and the 87th Irish Fusiliers earned their glorious surname of the
"Eagle-takers;" and over the waves of Trafalgar where Nelson did his
duty, and was smitten with a bullet in the spine; and passing into the
Straits and rounding the point by Tarifa, stood in for the Bay of
Gibraltar. A spacious swelling spread of live water it is, and safe,
except, as one of my fellow-passengers informed me, for a rock off the
Punta del Carnero, or Mutton Point. The rock is covered when the tide is
high (for there is a tide here), but rears its tortoise-like back over
the surface for so