TESTING THE TRITON. 101 



persistently attempt to take possession of our temporary '' house 

 and home." William, also from one of the outer islands, obeyed 

 orders, and made himself generally useful. 



We were soon out upon the broad Atlantic, and Sampson, like 

 the rider of a winning horse at a race, experienced a gratification 

 he could not entirely conceal, as, with the gracefulness and seem- 

 ing speed of a sea gull, his yacht pluckily met and mounted the 

 high rolling billows, which we could not but remember had, in 

 their angry moods, strewn with wrecks the neighboring shores. 

 A portion of one of those wrecks was in sight, being all that re- 

 maina of a blockade runner, whose captain took his steamer to 

 the left instead of the right of Nassau lighthouse. Some claim 

 the officers were all drunk; others say, "it was a put up job;" 

 but all the boatmen united in affirming, that, as a consequence, 

 *' boots and shoes were plenty on Hog Island " — those articles 

 having constituted a part of her cargo. Certain it is, that hav- 

 ing sailed out of Nassau harbor one afternoon, the vessel returned 

 in the evening of the same day, and was beached. Sampson said, 

 with an exultant chuckle, after alluding to the cargo scattered 

 along the shore, that *' der Cap'n mistake Nassau light for der 

 * Hole in der AY all,' " (a well known light upon Abaco, nearly six- 

 teen miles distant.) 



The larger waves moved towards us in stately grandeur, in a 

 regular order of succession, as if marshaled and marching over 

 the bosom of the ocean under the guidance and direction of some 

 invisible god of the seas. After evciy nine smaller waves had 

 passed by, and under us, the long liquid platoon was marked 

 and bounded by a billow whose approach was watched with much 

 interest, and Avith an exhilarating but peculiar pleasure, as it 

 would often not only wash our forecastle and submerge our gun- 

 nels, but drench us from head to foot, and make lively work for 

 William and his sponges. The pure ocean air, pleasantly cool 



