A PRETTY SUPERSTITION. 29 L 



us for our ultimate resting-place, where perpetual sun- 

 shine and unclouded happiness will reign for ever. 



Next morning when day awoke me, I was delighted 

 to find that we were once more on a level keel, and 

 when I gained the deck, so bright and joyous appeared 

 the weather, that you could imagine that nature was 

 laughing and enjoying our previous discomfort. Sambo, 

 the cook, soon supplied me with a cup of coffee, which, 

 with my morning pipe, I thoroughly enjoyed, while I 

 watched the detached banks of fog roll lazily over the 

 water, occasionally shutting out or opening vistas of 

 the distance. The whole water was alive with fish, 

 the surface in many places being broken, and resem- 

 bling the rapids of a river, with their gambols, but 

 soon a giant porpoise would roll in among them, 

 when all the terrified fry would disappear for a few 

 minutes, to re-present themselves when the intruder 

 had departed. Gulls, in immense numbers, floated 

 upon the water, as if resting from the fatigue caused 

 by the war of the elements, and adding beauty to the 

 picture by their pure white, spotless plumage. I re- 

 member hearing an old salt in answer to the question 

 of why sea-fowl, in oad weather, so much more fear- 

 lessly approach vessels than when it is calm, give the 

 following solution : " Well, you see, those good folks 

 who die don't go to Davie Jones, but turn into Cape 

 pigeons and kittiwakes, and them kind of birds, and 

 when they think it's rough and kind of dangerous, they 

 naturally like to hover about their friends to protect 

 them." If angels visit earth in these modern and 

 wicked times, there are many garbs they could assume 

 less beautiful and less suitable than that of the snowy- 

 white sea-gull. 



u2 



