REFLECTIONS. 273 



more ready for sea, have no difficulty in obtain- 

 ing a berth on board a country vesel. She had 

 resolved that I should become a settler in the 

 country, never to return to Britain or America. 



My occupation as boatman continued four weeks. 

 By this time I was able to make for myself another 

 opening. I entered a stevedore's gang, and tugged 

 manfully at sugar bags all day, content to return 

 to my nicely fitted room at night, the richer by 

 two rupees, and with a certainty that no storm, 

 however severe, could disturb my sleep. 



But soon " the demon of unrest " again stirred 

 within me. To be sure, the life I led pleased me 

 to a certain extent. So well, indeed, that I too 

 shortly began to entertain the idea of spending 

 some years, if not the balance of my life, in the 

 Mauritius and the Indian seas. Once in a while, 

 however, the thought would arise, that I was not 

 surrounded by just such society as was most con- 

 genial to me, and that in the mode of life I thought 

 of adopting, there was nothing improving or 

 elevating. 



But eight years at sea had pretty effectually 

 scotched any aspirations for a higher position 

 which I might once have entertained. Life the 

 sailor's life, the only one of which I now had any 

 \vell shaped idea seemed at best but a trouble- 

 some and tiresome struggle. And so I brought 

 myself to think the vegetative existence of man 

 upon an out of the way place like the Mauritius, 

 at least better than a more toilsome life in more 

 IS 



