OR, VULCAN S PEAK. 17 of the Capes, and fancied the dear little Bucks county girl he had left behind him, talking with his sister of his own absence and risks. But Mark had too much of the true spirit of a sailor in him, to pine, or neglect his duty ; and, long ere the ship had doubled the Cape of Good Hope, he had become an active and handy lad aloft. When the ship reached the China seas, he actually took his trick at the helm. As was usual in that day, the voyage of the Rancocus lasted about a twelvemonth. If John Chinaman were only one-half as active as Jonathan Restless, it might be dis posed of in about one-fourth less time ; but teas are not transported along the canals of the Celestial Empire with anything like the rapidity with which wheat was sent to market over the rough roads of the Great Republic, in the age of which we are writing. When Mark Woolston re-appeared in Bristol, after the arrival of the Rancocus below had been known there about twenty-four hours, he was the envy of all the lads in the place, and the admiration of most of the girls. There he was, a tall, straight, active, well-made, well-grown and decidedly handsome lad of seventeen, who had doubled the Cape of Good Hope, seen foreign parts, and had a real India handkerchief hanging out of each pocket of a blue round-about of superfine cloth, besides one around his half- open well-formed throat, that was carelessly tied in a true sailor knot ! The questions he had to answer, and did answer, about whales, Chinese feet, and " mountain waves !" Although Bristol lies on a navigable river, up and down which frigates had actually been seen to pass in the revo lution, it was but little that its people knew of the ocean. Most of the worthy inhabitants of the place actually fancied that the waves of the sea were as high as mountains, though their notions of the last were not very precise, there being no elevations in that part of the country fit even for a wind mill. But Mark cared little for these interrogatories. He was happy; happy enough, at being the object of so much at tention ; happier still in the bosom of a family of which he had always been the favourite and was now the pride ; and happiest of all wken he half ravished a kiss from the blush- 2*
