he continued it. He went to sea in good
earnest when quite a boy and spent his first years in the coasting
trade, in which rough service he became a thorough seaman, and was
wrecked several times on various parts of our stormy shores. On
reaching man's estate he turned a longing eye to foreign lands, and in
course of time visited some of the most distant parts of the globe, so
that he may be said to have been a great traveller before his whiskers
were darker than a lady's eyebrows.

During these voyages, as a matter of course, he experienced great
variety of fortune. He had faced the wildest of storms, and bathed in
the beams of the brightest sunshine. He was as familiar with wreck as
with rations; every species of nautical disaster had befallen him;
typhoons, cyclones, and simooms had done their worst to him, but they
could not kill him, for Bill bore a sort of charmed life, and invariably
turned up again, no matter how many of his shipmates went down. Despite
the rough experiences of his career he was as fresh and good-looking a
young fellow as one would wish to see.

Before proceeding with the narrative of his life, we shall give just one
specimen of his experiences while he was in the merchant service.

Having joined a ship bound for China, he set sail with the proverbial
light heart and light pair of breeches, to which we may add light
pockets. His heart soon became somewhat heavier when he discovered that
his captain was a tyrant, whose chief joy appeared to consist in making
other people miserable. Bill Bowls's nature, however was adaptable, so
that although his spirits were a little subdued, they were not crushed.
He was wont to console himself, and his comrades, with the remark that
this state of things couldn't last for ever, that the voyage would come
to an end some time or other, and that men should never say die as long
as there remained a shot in the locker!

That voyage did come to an end much sooner than he or the tyrannical
captain expected!

One evening our hero stood near the binnacle talking to the steersman, a
sturdy middle-aged sailor, whose breadth appeared to be nearly equal to
his length.

"Tom Riggles," said Bill, somewhat abruptly, "we're goin' to have dirty
weather."

"That's so, lad, I'm not goin' to deny it," replied Tom, as he turned
the wheel a little to windward:

Most landsmen would have supposed that Bill's remark should have been,
"We _have_ got dirty weather," for a