ADVENTURES OF A SAILOR. 211 



on me to remember the gal. I certainly should have 

 liked to have formed an acquaintance with her, but 

 I had too many ties at home to forget and forsake 

 my country. This old fellow was an English man- 

 of-war's man who had deserted from his ship in the 

 early days of the settlement of the island, and mar- 

 rying a native woman, had reared a family of hand- 

 some and interestino; children. His code of morals 

 was not of the highest standard, neither was his sense 

 of duty as a parent, or he would not have wished to 

 dispose of his daughter so summarily without her 

 consent; but then he may have been fully acquainted 

 with her wishes, and I was assured that these girls 

 consider it as a great honor to secure an American 

 husband. In proof of this I will relate the adven- 

 tures of a townsman of mine. He sailed from New 

 Bedford in a whaler, deserted at Bravo, one of the 

 Cape De Yerde Islands, contracted some sort of a 

 marriage with one of the Portuguese girls there, be- 

 came tired of her, and shipped aboard a second New 

 Bedford ship bound to the South Seas. She cruised 

 off New Zealand, and then proceeded to the Austra- 

 lian Bight. Whilst in these latitudes, this young man 

 fell from the maintop into the waist boat, and dis- 

 placed his ribs. A few days after the accident we 

 fell in with her, and I went aboard and set them. We 

 saw no more of the ship or him for a long time, when 

 one day, whilst we were gammoning with the Colo- 

 nial ship Pacific, I was surprised at seeing the self- 

 same individual step aboard from her boat, well and 

 hearty, having perfectly recovered from his injury. 

 He told me that being weak for some time after he 

 was hurt, his captain had left him ashore at Stewart's 



