1852.] 
SAIL FOR ENGLAND. 
391 
stage, and after the parties had been given up by the 
doctors. One had been cured by eating ices, another 
by drinking a bottle of wine ; ices in fact had got into 
great favour as a fine tonic, and were taken daily by 
many persons as a most useful medicine. 
I agreed for my passage in the brig Helen, 235 tons, 
Captain John Turner, whose property she was ; and on 
the morning of Monday, the 12th of July, we got aboard, 
and bade adieu to the white houses and waving palm- 
trees of Para. Our cargo consisted of about a hundred 
and twenty tons of India-rubber, and a quantity of cocoa, 
arnotto, piassaba, and balsam of capivi. About two days 
after we left I had a slight attack of fever, and almost 
thought that I was still doomed to be cut off by the 
dread disease which had sent my brother and so many 
of my countrymen to graves upon a foreign shore. A 
little calomel and opening medicines however soon set 
me right again ; but as I was very weak, and suffered 
much from sea-sickness, I spent most of my time in 
the cabin. For three weeks we had very light winds 
and fine weather, and on the 6th of August had reached 
about latitude 30° 30' north, longitude 52° west. 
On that morning, after breakfast, I was reading in the 
cabin, when the Captain came down and said to me, 
“ I’m afraid the ship’s on fire ; come and see what you 
think of it,” and proceeded to examine the lazaretto, or 
small hole under the floor where the provisions are kept, 
but no signs of fire were visible there. We then went 
on deck to the fore part of the ship, where we found a 
dense vapoury smoke issuing from the forecastle. The 
fore hatchway was immediately opened, and, the smoke 
