6 LETTERS FROM MADRAS. [umr. 11.
venture we have had. I contrived to creep forward to see it, but I have been ill and keeping to my eabin lately. 1 sit with the door open, which gives me plenty of air: and if I spy any of the ladies looking neighbourly, as if they thought of “ sitting with me,” I just shut my eyes, whiel: answers as well as “ sport- ing my oak,” and does not exelude the air; but they must think I get plenty of sleep!
September 24th.—Yesterday, at three o'clock in the morning, we came up with a Freneh brig bound from Madagascar to Mio. She was, as the sailors said, “ A most beautiful little craft!” and loaked to great advantage in the moonlight: I put my head out of the port to admire her and listen to the conversation, little suspecting her real characier; but uext morning the skipper told us there was no doubt she was a piratical slaver, and that, if we had been a ship of war, we should have stepped and examined her; but we are not strong enough for such adveniures, so she and her poor slaves are gone on. Next morning we saw two whales playing in the waters, swimming, blowing, jumping, turning head over heels, and pleasuring themselves, as if they had been minnows.
October 15t.-—-News of a homeward-bound ship in the distanee, so I must get ready.