cers by pointing out to them the various public buildings and places
of interest, which I had visited only last year during a delightful
week-end trip. So delighted were they all that, before sighting Margate,
I was promoted to the rank of tenth mate.

'On arriving at Margate, numerous merchants came along the jetty in
bath-chairs to examine our cargo. None, however, wanted to buy camels;
all wanted donkeys for the sands. In spite of the captain's argument,
that camels were much more used to sand than donkeys, having spent the
best part of their lives on the sands of the desert, the merchants were
obdurate, and we had to sail away again with our camels. We also now
carried with us a shipload of Carraway Comfits, which we had purchased
at Margate, hoping to be able to dispose of them at some port, and so
compensate ourselves for the loss of business at Margate.

[Illustration: I SIGN ON AS CABIN BOY]

'For many days we sailed on and on, out through the Yarmouth Roads into
the Persian Gulf, one incident alone standing out vividly in my memory
during this part of the voyage. It was the dog watch, on a lovely summer
evening; we were making little way, just sufficient to enliven the
whitebait that leapt and prattled round our prow, or disturb a lazy
brill that dozed upon our course. Here and there the spotted tunny
would leap several yards from the sea, to descend again with a mighty
smack upon the waters. From afar, borne upon the gentle breeze, came the
low grizzle of the sperm-whale as it herded its young, or the thud of
the mighty sword-fish, as it drove home the deadly weapon with which
Nature, knowing its own ends, has provided him; while, mellowed by even
greater distance, the high-pitched yell of the land-cod and the shriek
of its maddened prey, could now and again be heard. I was lazily
reclining among the peak halyards, whittling out a mermaid's head from
a piece of hard-boiled gannet's egg, which I intended to send to Jane,
should a passing vessel give me such an opportunity. Full of peace, and
imbued with the calm that pervaded the sea and the sky, I was hardly
prepared for the shock in store for me. Suddenly, without any warning, I
was jerked from my position among the halyards, and flung head-first
into the sea. Down, and down I went, until, nearly exhausted, I made one
great effort to come to the surface. When at last I reached it, I found
that from some unknown cause the ship had been tilted nearly on to its