( SO ) 



CHAPTER II. 



NEWFOUNDLAND. 

 1827, 1828. 



THE brig Carbonear, on which Philip Gosse sailed 

 away for the New World, was a poor tub of a craft. 

 Her sailing powers were limited ; the voyagers suffered 

 from a large proportion of westerly winds ; and the voyage 

 extended over not fewer than forty-six days. The preval- 

 ence of fine warm weather, however, the pleasant society 

 on board, together with the rare faculty of observation which 

 the boy possessed, and could now exercise on so novel a 

 field as the ocean, prevented his feeling the inordinate 

 length of the voyage to be at all tedious. Beside the 

 captain and mate, there were three other passengers — Luke 

 Thomas, a lad two years younger than Gosse ; a Mr. 

 Phippard, sailmaker to the firm ; and Mr. Oehlenschlager, a 

 German gentleman from Hamburg, now going out to estab- 

 lish a mercantile connection in St. John's. The grown-up 

 people behaved with great cordiality to the two lads, 

 and they formed a lively party around the cabin-table. 

 Philip's sense of depression at parting from home was 

 very transient. As soon as he grew accustomed to the 

 sickening motion of the sea, his pleasures began. He 

 soon learned to mount the rigging, and to take up a 

 pleasant station in the maintop, delighting to sit and read 

 there, in the warm sunshine, with all the turmoil of the 



