THE AFRICAN COAST. 299 



With this piece, half of reasoning, half of brag- 

 gadocio, I lit my segar, confident I had given a 

 death-blow to our harmless little conspiracy. 



" It's just as Yankee Charley says, boys, ' spoke 

 one, after a long silence, during which all had 

 evidently been chewing the cud of reflection. " It's 

 not fit that British sailors should toss sleeping 

 men overboard, or knock defenseless men on the 

 head. It looks too much like a parcel of misera- 

 ble Portuguese. But if either skipper or mate will 

 fight me, man fashion, when we get ashore, I'll 

 give them such a pair of black peepers as you 

 won't find this side of London bridge, or Donny- 

 brook Fair." 



This was the last of what was afterward called 

 " our pet conspiracy." Had our passage been a 

 tedious one, I am not certain but that it would 

 have been again revived. Happily, however, for 

 all concerned, it lasted but fourteen days, and for 

 three of these fourteen we were in sight of the Af- 

 rican coast. It takes longer than two weeks to 

 natch out a mutiny a fact in ornithology to 

 which, perhaps, our rascally officers owed more 

 than they were aware. 



We made the coast at some distance to the north 

 of our port. Here, the African land, which I now 

 beheld plainly for the second time, was high, and 

 apparently barren very unattractive indeed, and 

 with its yellow sandy hills, realizing somehow, 

 my conception of the Great Desert. As wo ap- 

 proached Algoa Bay, the bluffs disappeared, and 



