202 AUSTRALIA AND HOMEWARD. 



we can afford to be jocular over what might have been 

 serious. If fishes jump into the ship, men, to be even 

 with them, sometimes jump into the sea. " Man 

 overboard!" All hands rush to the deck. The ship 

 is stopped, engines reversed, buoys thrown out, boats 

 lowered. " Pull away, boys, to the eastward, half a 

 mile astern : follow the track of the ship." 



Fortunately it is a lovely morning. There is just 

 enough swell to give a graceful motion to the boat 

 gone out in search. All opera-glasses are in requisi- 

 tion ; all eyes scan the surface of the water. " There 

 he is! See, the boat is pulling straight for him." 

 Five minutes later up goes an oar, like a mast to the 

 boat, a signal that they have him. When he is safe 

 on board again, we can ask, Who is he ? and how 

 came he off the ship ? 



" So ho, my lad, so ho !" One of the African black 

 fellows, who has given the officers a good deal of 

 trouble before, now, rather than work, plays " sick." 

 When the doctor reports that he can find nothing the 

 matter with him, he is ordered by the boss with the 

 whistle to go to work; and, in a fit of passion, he 

 pops over. 



However, a man in new circumstances and cold 

 water sometimes changes his mind, and my jolly tar 

 no sooner reaches the surface, after his plunge, than 



