kness, and advised me to try the pump. I followed his advice: a
few strokes brought up the bilge water, than which nothing at that time
could have been more insufferably nauseous! I left the pump in disgust,
and retiring to the after part of the quarter-deck, threw myself down on
a coil of rope, unable longer to struggle with my fate. There I remained
unnoticed and uncared for for several hours, when, the wind having
changed, the rope which formed my bed, and proved to be the "main
sheet," was wanted, and I was unceremoniously ejected from my quarters,
and roughly admonished to "go below and keep out of the way!" I crawled
into the cabin, and, stretched on some boxes, endeavored to get a little
sleep; but the conglomeration of smells of a most inodorous character,
which, as it seemed to my distempered fancy, pervaded every part of the
vessel, prevented my losing a sense of suffering in sleep.

As I lay musing on the changes which a few days had wrought in my
condition, and, borne down by the pangs of seasickness, was almost ready
to admit that there was prose as well as poetry in a sailor's life, I
was startled by a terrific noise, the announcement, I supposed, of some
appalling danger. I heard distinctly three loud knocks on the deck at
the entrance of the steerage, and then a sailor put his head down the
companion-way, and in a voice loud, cracked, and discordant, screamed in
a tone which I thought must have split his jaws asunder, "LA-AR-BO-A-RD
W-A-T-CH A-H-O-O-Y."

In spite of my sickness I started from my uncomfortable resting place,
scrambled into the steerage, and by a roll of the brig was tumbled under
the steps, and suffered additional pains and apprehensions before I
ascertained that the unearthly sounds which had so alarmed me were
nothing more than the usual mode of "calling the watch," or in other
words, the man with the unmusical voice had gently hinted to the
sleepers below that "turn-about was fair play," and they were wanted on
deck.

To add to my troubles, the wind in the morning shifted to the
south-east, and thus became a head wind, and the old brig became more
restless than ever, and pitched and rolled to leeward occasionally with
a lurch, performing clumsy antics in the water which my imagination
never pictured, and which I could neither admire nor applaud.

For several days we were beating about Massachusetts Bay and St.
George's Bank, making slow progress on our voyage. During that time
I wa