e
result, peeping from underneath the break of the poop; and, when the
hands raised a cheer in token of their satisfaction at the settlement,
he immediately went and locked himself in his pantry, where he began
kicking the despised marmalade tins about as if twenty riveters and
boiler-makers and hammermen were below!

It was very nearly a mutiny, though.

A westerly current being against us as well as the winds light, it took
us nearly a week to get up to the thirty-third parallel of latitude,
during which time this little unpleasantness occurred; but then, picking
up the south-east trades off the Australian coast, we went bowling along
steadily again northward for the Straits of Sunda, making for the
westwards of the passage so as to be to windward of a strong easterly
current that runs through the strait.

I was the first on board to see Java Head, a bluff promontory stretching
out into the sea that marks the entrance to Sunda. This was how it was:
we'd got more to the north of the captain's reckoning, and while up in
the mizzen cross-trees, in the afternoon of our eighty-fifth day out
from land to land, I clearly distinguished the headland far-away in the
distance, over our starboard quarter.

"Land ho!" I sang out; "land ho!"

"Are you sure?" cried Captain Gillespie from the deck below looking up
at me, when his long nose, being foreshortened, seemed to run into his
mouth, giving him the most peculiar appearance. "Where away?"

"Astern now, sir," I answered. "South-east by south, and nearly off the
weather topsail."

"I think I'd better have a look myself," said "Old Jock," clambering up
the mizzen-shrouds and soon getting aloft beside me; adding as he caught
sight of the object I pointed out--"by Jingo, you're right, boy! It's
Java Head, sure enough."

He then scuttled down the ratlines like winking.

"Haul in to leeward!" he shouted. "Brace round the yards! Down with
your helm!"

"Port it is," said the boatman.

"Steady then, so!" yelled "Old Jock," conning the ship towards the mouth
of the straits. "Keep her east-nor'-east as nearly as you can, giving
her a point if she falls off!"

By and by, we entered the Straits of Sunda; and then, keeping the Java
shore on board, we steered so as to avoid the Friar's Rock in the middle
of the channel, making for Prince's Island.

The wind and current being both in our favour, and the moon rising soon
after sunset, we were able to fetch Anjer Point in