6 



VOYAGE FROM ENGLAND 



announced by a general hue and cry from the sailors, who are among his 

 deadliest foes. All are instantly up in arms. Their animated and entire devo- 

 tion to their purpose, in which every feeling is interested, can scarcely be 

 equalled by the pleasurable emotions of a sportsman at the moment a fox is 

 breaking cover. Every artifice is used by throwing out pieces of pork at the 

 end of ropes, which he voraciously follows to the side of the ship ; the weapons 

 of death are ready; and, after striking him, and a struggle ensuing to get him 

 on board, if, by any effort of his strength, he break away, which I have seen, 

 great is the sullen vexation and disappointment shown by the crew. He is 

 usually accompanied by three or four pilot fish, about the size of a whiting : they 

 are extremely beautiful, and appear in the water as if fastened upon his back, 

 near the head. 



On the 23d of April, in 12° 34' north latitude, I was, for the first time in my 

 life, under a vertical sun, now by degrees moving through the northern tropic, 

 and gradually dispensing his benign influence to the regions of the north. 



On the 1st of May, in 2° north latitude, and 22° west longitude, an officer 

 from the Rockingham, Captain Waugh, a free trader from the East Indies, 

 boarded us, to solicit some trifles they wanted, and particularly newspapers, 

 which their passengers, including some ladies, he stated, were extremely 

 desirous to see. There was a peculiar pleasure in having even a transient inter- 

 course with a ship at sea, and being enabled to relieve, in any degree, their 

 wants. The social feelings, the fellow sympathies of man, were revived with 

 renewed vigour by the idea of our having, on the wide and solitary ocean, been 

 mutually so long separated from our own proper element and exposed to the 

 perils of the deep, and by the new sight of our countrymen, after having been 

 confined to the view only of those within the compass of the few yards that 

 enclosed the space of the brig. It increased the kindly emotions in the awaken- 

 ed thoughts of absent country, and especially of the dear family circle of home. 



" Home ! There is a magic in that little word ! 

 It is a mystic circle that surrounds 

 Pleasures and comforts never known beyond 

 The hallow'd limit." 



About this time we lost the north-east trade wind, which was succeeded by 

 calms and squalls, that detained us seven or eight days near the Line. Nothing 

 can be experienced in a voyage much more unpleasant than this vicissitude of 

 weather. The irksomeness of a calm near the equator is rendered almost insup- 



