r to drink all the
way--why, sir, I fancy as how you'd remember the blessed place to your
dying day; and, would recollect all about it in the flash of a moment
again when any one just mentioned its name again the same as you have
done just now!"

The speaker was a fine, robust-looking seaman of middle height, and
probably of middle age also, for there was a slight suspicion of grey in
the crisp brown beard that covered the lower part of his countenance,
while several prominent wrinkles were apparent about the corners of his
merry, twinkling, blue eyes.

He was dressed respectably in a sober suit of some rough material that
fitted easily to his well-proportioned limbs, and, from his civilian
costume and nautical look--for he had a sort of briny flavour about him,
so to speak--I took him for a petty officer of the Royal Navy who had
retired from the active duties of his profession on account of his
length of service afloat having entitled him to the _otium cum
dignitate_ of a pension ashore for the remainder of his days. Such was
my surmise at first sight--an impression subsequently in part confirmed;
but be that as it may, he and I had got into conversation one bright
summer day not long ago while standing on Portsmouth Hard, watching a
white-hulled Indian troopship steaming out of the harbour beyond, with
the marines for Egypt on board. I had mentioned Madagascar in casually
commenting on the plucky behaviour displayed at Tamatave by Captain
Johnstone of HMS _Dryad_ in resisting the high-handed proceedings of the
French admiral, who appeared to think that he might insult the English
flag with impunity from the fact of his being in command of a squadron
flying the Tricolour flag while the representative of the Union Jack had
only one solitary vessel to oppose to that force.

"Aye, I know the East African station well," continued my friend. "I
was invalided home from there, and got my pension three years before my
twenty years' term of service was up in consequence."

"Indeed!" said I, to lead him on, in expectation of the yarn I could
perceive looming before me; but playing with my fish gently, as anglers
know so well how to do, so that I might not frighten him into silence by
any undue display of anxiety on my part.

"Yes, I served over a year in the _London_ at Zanzibar before being
drafted off to one of the cruisers on the station. Beastly unhealthy
place that Zanzibar--all fevers and agues and malaria in the