360 PHASES OF A sailor's LIFE. 



considerable money, and after the lapse of a few years 

 returned to the States, taking his wife and their two 

 children with him. At home, he for some years 

 rested ; but the continual yearning for the sea expe- 

 rienced by all who have once been afloat, and not 

 been disgusted with life thereon, induced him, in his 

 old age, to ship as cooper of the Mary. No sooner 

 was he afloat, however, than on exerting himself he 

 found that his was not now a system such as that 

 which had carried him through so many years of 

 hardship and exposure. Fast living and imprudence 

 had done their work, and his constitution was gone. 

 The bracing sea-air, instead of invigorating, depressed 

 and weakened him. Dispirited, he was at last laid 

 up, like a worn-out hulk, without power or will to 

 be engaged in aught but the most puerile employ- 

 ments. During his stay aboard the Mary (rather 

 over two years) he had not heard from home ; and, 

 being very ingenious, he had, to occupy his mind 

 and drive away heart-sickness, employed himself by 

 scrimschawing, and had completed a store of unique 

 and carefully-fabricated articles of various descrip- 

 tions, from woods he procured in the difierent ports 

 he had visited, or from ivory and bone. 



The boat being now ready to return, I left the 

 narrator, and went aboard our own ship. I informed 

 the captain that he must send him into the nearest 

 port, (St. Helena,) where he might procure rest and 

 good medical treatment. This he thought inexpe- 

 dient; but, by dint of pressing, I convinced him of 

 the absolute necessity of such a course. After carrj^- 

 ing my point, I had the curiosity to ask him about 

 the cooper's antecedents ; because I had not given 



