240 WHALING AND FISHIN3. 



chart of the coast of Madagascar, by the help s.f 

 which we trusted to be able to find our way over 

 the deep. We elected Long Tom Coffin, the man 

 who was shot, our chief, and then divided our- 

 selves off into watches, holding the helmsman 

 for th e time being responsible for a correct reck- 

 oning of the course and distance made during his 

 trick, and putting upon Long Tom the labor of 

 keeping a regular log. 



" A spare royal which one of us had thrown in, 

 made a most excellent shelter for the watch at 

 night, and for all hands that desired to sleep during 

 the day. You can have no idea how well we got 

 along. The weather remained very fine, and the 

 wind was continually fair, while, sailing along 

 shore as we were, at no greater distance than was 

 necessary to skip, as it were, from headland to 

 headland, the sea was always so smooth that our 

 little craft got over it at a remarkable rate. We 

 named her the Dancing Feather, Long Tom 

 swearing that she danced better than the prettiest 

 girl he had ever seen. 



" After all preliminaries were settled, and we 

 were taking a quiet look around, Tom, who seemed 

 to have thought of everything, produced a bun- 

 dle of books. He had ransack .id every chest in 

 the forecastle, and borrowed all he could of the 

 boatsteerers. The two dozen volumes of tales and 

 novels which he now pitched out to us as the 

 result of his efforts, were most welcome access- 

 ions to our email stock of amusements, and we 



