merry song, and carved my name on the wall with a rusty nail, as other prisoners have done before me. The next day I was taken before a magistrate, who dismissed the case at once, and I resumed my journey. When I reached Liverpool I found that my ship was on the point of sailing. My luggage had been placed on board, and my half-cabin was ready for me. We had dreadful weather at sea ; we were driven many hundred miles out of our course, and for three weeks after leaving Liverpool I was terribly, ill, and did not leave my cabin. I believe I should not have left my cabin at all if I had not been thrown bodily out of it by a tremendous concussion one stormy night.
I rushed on deck, and found everything in the wildest confusion. A fearful storm was raging, and the ship had shifted her cargo. There was absolutely no hope for her, and it was impossible to launch a boat, even if it could have lived in such a sea. I don't want to harrow anybody, so I will content myself with explaining that, amid the shrieks of three hundred people, the vessel foundered.
I always take the precaution, when at sea, of wearing a little india-rubber apparatus round my neck, which I inflate, and in that condition it prevents my head from going under. I inflated it hastily, and I found that it answered admirably. I was tossed about violently for some hours, and when the gale at length subsided, I looked around me. No land was visible; and as I rose and fell in the sulky lopping sea, I felt that my hour was at hand. I looked eagerly towards the horizon on all sides,
