LAMENTABLE EXD OF A BAD CAREER. 361 



full credence to all his story, inasmuch as old sailors 

 are so famous for drawing a long bow. The captain 

 gave me a rehearsal of his past life, which fully sub- 

 stantiated all that he had said of liimself ; and, after 

 he had finished it, I left him, with the conviction 

 that I had seen the most practical illustration pos- 

 sible of a career at sea, where Christianity or morality 

 had not held the helm. Here was a man, who had 

 made much more than a competency during life, and 

 who had walked his own quarter-deck, after having 

 gained his position by his own unaided personal 

 exertion, reduced at the end of a life-time of battling 

 with the elements to a subordinate station — sick, 

 debilitated, and uncared-for — aged, weak, and care- 

 worn — far away from home, without the fostering 

 attentions of a wife or children to render the couch of 

 sickness other than a bed of thorns; and this lamen- 

 table situation brought on, not by the villany or mis- 

 management of others, but, according to his own 

 confession, by his individual imprudence. 



The Mary, like the Messenger, had on board some 

 half-a-dozen persons whose eyes were affected mys- 

 teriously. She was down by the head,' and had 

 (as was also the case with the Messenger) been so 

 trimmed on the whole voyage, which trim facilitates 

 the collection of putrid water in the forward part of 

 the ship's hold ; hence, by taking into consideration 

 these singular coincidents of the vessels, together 

 with the fact that no one who lived abaft the main- 

 mast had been so afiected in either, the disease may, 

 I think, be safely attributed to bilge-water. 



After gammoning with the Mary, we ran close in 

 to the African coast, and fell in with several Atlantic 

 31 



