252 EXTRACTS FROM A LANDSMAN's LOG. 



the main tack that hung, in its raised state, over 

 their heads to leeward. A seaman, with a lantern, 

 stood above the group of officers near me, on a gun 

 under the main rigging, and another by the mast 

 close to where I steadied myself, with an arm round 

 the fall of the lee-main-topsail-sheet. The crew 

 were silent as the dead man : seamen are exemplary 

 in this respect, and excepting that the officer of the 

 watch crept off now and then to the old quartermaster 

 at the wheel, with an occasional securing of our 

 positions as the ship reeled into the trough of the sea, 

 nothing interrupted the wild dirge that played in 

 .gusts aloft. When I reached the clause, " we there- 

 fore commit his body to the deep, to be turned into 

 corruption," the grating suddenly disappeared, and 

 long before it could be hauled in again, the distressed 

 subject had gone down into his unfathomable grave. 

 To avoid detention under the quarantine laws, the 

 crew were employed next morning in fumigating the 

 lower-deck, sprinkling the brig with vinegar, and 

 casting over what little apparel the deceased had 

 left. Among these we found what threw an interest, 

 not any additional light over the poor lad's narrative : 

 it was a girl's portrait, wrapp€d in the fragments of 

 a half obliterated letter, the words, as far as these 

 might be decyphered, tended to confirm our previ- 

 ously conceived ideas of him. It ran in wildly 

 enthusiastic terms, fostering a hope he seemed to 

 entertain of acquiring wealth and fortune among the 

 patriots of South America — they had brought him to 

 what we had seen. But the picture was still smiling 

 as before, in serene unconsciousness of the reverse, 

 and looking every thing that is pure, and lovely, and 

 exalted, and hallowed, and calm. 



