. The black cook was lighting his fire in the
caboose, from whence a wreath of smoke ascended almost perpendicularly
in the clear atmosphere. The sea was smooth as glass, but every now and
then a slowly heaving swell lifted the vessel, and caused her sails,
which hung down against the masts, to give a loud flap, while here and
there the surface was broken by the fin or snout of some monster of the
deep swimming round us. Our monkey, Quako, who had been turned out of
his usual resting-place, was exhibiting more than his ordinary agility--
springing about the rigging, and chattering loudly, now making his way
aloft, whence he looked eastwards, and now returning to the caboose, as
if to communicate his ideas to his sable friend.

"What makes Quako so frisky this morning?" I asked of Dick Radforth,
the boatswain, a sturdy broad shouldered man of iron frame, who, with
trousers tucked up, and bare arms brawny as those of Hercules, was
standing, bucket in hand, near me, deluging the deck with water.

"He smells his native land, Harry," he answered, "and thinks he is going
to pay a visit to his kith and kindred. We shall have to keep him
moored pretty fast, or he will be off into the woods to find them. I
have a notion you will get a sight of it before long, when the sea
breeze sets in and sends the old barky through the water."

"What! the coast of Africa!" I exclaimed, and thoughts of that
wonderful region, with its unexplored rivers, its gloomy forests, and
its black skinned inhabitants, with their barbarous customs and
superstitious rites, rose in my mind.

"Aye, sure and it will be a pleasant day when we take our departure from
the land, and see the last of it," observed Dick. "If those niggers
would trade like other people we might make quick work of it, and be
away home again in a few weeks, but we may thank our stars if we get a
full cargo by this time next year, without leaving some of our number
behind."

"What? I should not fancy that any of our fellows were likely to
desert," I observed.

"No; but they are likely to get pressed by a chap who won't let go his
gripe of them again," answered Dick.

"Who is that?" I asked.

"Yellow-fingered Jack we call him sometimes, the coast fever," said
Dick. "If they would but take better care of themselves and not drink
those poisonous spirits and sleep on shore at night, they might keep out
of his clutches. I give this as a hint to you, Harry. I have been
t