usual nautical interrogatory when ships are speaking each other.

'I'm a mishnur', sir,' replied the man.

'A mishnur'!' echoed our captain, repeating the words to himself: never heard of a vessel with such a name in my life. 'Oh, ay,' as the mate here suggested an explanation of the reply- that's your own employment, is it? But what's your vessel's name, I mean?'

"The John of Belfast, sir; and, you see, we're going to Burbadis with a cargo of taties-taties and salt beef, sir; but I believe we'll be all dead with thirst by the time we raich it. Can you give us nuthint to drink?'

'Have you no water on board?' asked our captain, equally surprised and amused at this singular application.

Not a cupful, sir,' replied the Irishman; 'that's to say, there's about a couple o' gallons or so; but Bill Kearneythat's our captain, sir-keeps it locked up, as he has just about as much whisky, to make grug of. He always takes it half and half.'

As well as he could for laughing, our captain here directed our sails to be backed, to prevent our making headway from the schooner, and called out to the Irishman to send a boat, and he would get a supply of water.

'Send, sir! I have nobody but myself to send !—and sure I can't walk on the surface of the say for it!'

'Where's your captain? Desire him to speak to me.' 'Our captain, is it, sir?-he can't spake at present: this is his time o' day for being dead-drunk.' 'Where's the mate then?'

'He's drunk, too, sir.'

'And where are all the crew?'

'I'm all the crew myself, sir; that is, me and the little boy-and he's drunk also. For you see, sir, our other man-that was Barney Ryan-died about a week ago of a sort of frinzy, and was thrown overboard. And well for us that he was so!-for he drank more than the whole of us put together; and if he had lived, we might all have been thrown overboard by this time!'

The whole of our crew and passengers were by this

time in a roar of laughter at the naïve communication of the poor Irishman; but our captain, compassionating his condition, ordered a boat to be lowered, and directed the mate to board the schooner, and ascertain how matters actually stood. Curiosity induced me to ask permission to accompany him; and we were soon alongside the little vessel, with a hogshead of Thames water in the long-boat. As we were nearing her, I could hear the 'mishnur',' as he called himself, shouting down the companion to his slumbering captain: 'Bill-I say, Bill Kearney, come up here dirickly. Here are some gintlemen coming to visit you, and you lying snoring there like a pig. Get up, man, I say, for very shame.'

And accordingly, as we got on deck, Captain Kearney made his appearance. He was the very beau ideal of an Irish sailor-a clean made, active fellow, with a shock head of red hair, and a round, good-humoured countenance. But for his blearedness of eye, we could see no symptoms of intoxication upon him; he saluted our mate with much easy politeness, said he was happy to see him, and concluded with remarking, that it was 'charming weather.'

'So it would need, Mr Kearney, I think,' replied our mate, 'if this be the order you maintain on board. Are you not afraid of being taken aback by a squall?'

'Not at all, sir-not at all,' replied Mr Kearney: 'I knew there would be no squalls this afternoon. Besides, I had the doctor here-this is Dr Sullivan, sir; he's a taicher, and is going out to learn the little black boys and girls to spell and write, sir-I had Dr Sullivan to keep a look-out in case of accidents. I kept him sober on purpose, while Phil Connor and I were drinking a drop to our ould friend Barney Ryan's memory, who died a few days ago.'

'But what would your owners say to all this, Mr Kearney, if they came to know it?'

'Owners!-we've no owners, sir,' replied Mr Kearney with dignity. This bit craft is Phil Connor's and mine, 'sept a two-and-thirtieth that the doctor's brother has in

her. She's employed in the butter-and-pig line between Belfast and Port-Patrick; but as the trade is rather cut up, we thought of making a start for some of the islands hereabouts, to see what could be done.'

'And where are you bound for?'

'For Burbadis,' answered Captain Kearney.

'Barbadoes!' echoed our mate; 'why, you're a hundred miles south of it. How do you keep your reckoning?'

'I tould you so, Bill Kearney, here broke in the doctor with great bitterness: 'I tould you, but you wouldn't mind me at all at all! I tould you that you had missed a whole day, drunk in bed as you was, without knowing of it! Set your watch by the gintleman's this moment, and wake Phil Connor, and let's be getting back as fast as we can. There was one fool more than enough in the world, Bill Kearney, when I took you for a sailor.'

'Have you no quadrant or chronometer on board?' asked our mate in astonishment, his ideas of nautical proficiency being shocked at what appeared to me only inexpressibly ludicrous.

Captain Kearney confessed his total ignorance of such articles. His only guides were an old timepiece, the compass, and the log; and it appeared, on explanation, that he had forgotten to wind up the former, upon the evening of waking the deceased Mr Barney Ryan. It turned out, in short, that the whole party were a set of genuine originals: not one of them had ever been in that quarter of the ocean before-knew nothing of navigation save what appertained to the Irish Channel, and, had their water and 'swait Inishone' lasted, would in all probability have sailed into the antarctic regions, had they not fallen in with us.

The individual whom they styled the doctor, and who had complacently adopted the further honorary epithet of missionary, had, it seems, no more pretensions to these titles than what keeping a hedge-school for instructing children how to join letters together, and get their alphabet by rote, could give him. His friends, probably

anxious to rid themselves of a burden, had persuaded the poor fellow to adopt the present step, he himself working for his passage. Our mate expressed his utter astonishment that they had not all gone to the bottom long since. He endeavoured, however, to instruct Kearney and the doctor respecting their present bearings, and the course they must pursue to make Barbadoes; for which, as well as the supply of water, they professed eternal obligation. The captain's watch was duly set; and, having seen Phil Connor and the boy roused from their drunken slumbers, we departed. In the evening, the breeze freshened; and the John of Belfast, having got upon another tack, began to beat back to her place of destination, her comical crew saluting us with three hearty Irish cheers at parting.

ADVENTURE OF A BRITISH SOLDIER. IN the year 1759, when the war with France was conducted with great spirit in North America, a division of the British army was encamped on the banks of a river, and in a position so favoured by nature, that it was difficult for any military art to surprise it. War in America was rather a species of hunting than a regular campaign. The French, like the British, had incorporated the Indians into their ranks, and had made them useful in a species of war to which their habits of life had peculiarly fitted them. They sallied out of their impenetrable forests and jungles, and with their arrows and tomahawks committed daily waste upon the British army - surprising their sentinels, cutting off their stragglers, and even when the alarm was given and pursuit commenced, they fled with a swiftness that the speed of cavalry could not overtake, into rocks and fastnesses whither it was dangerous to follow them. In order to limit as far as possible this species of war,

in which there was so much loss and so little honour, it was the custom with every regiment to extend its outposts to a great distance beyond the encampments; to station sentinels some miles in the woods, and keep a constant guard round the main body.

A regiment of foot was at this time stationed upon the confines of a boundless savanna. Its particular office was to guard every avenue of approach to the main body; the sentinels, whose posts penetrated into the woods, were supplied from the ranks, and the service of this regiment was thus more hazardous than that of any other. Its loss was likewise great. The sentinels were perpetually surprised upon their posts by the Indians, and were borne off their stations without communicating any alarm, or being heard of after. Not a trace was left of the manner in which they had been conveyed away, except that, upon one or two occasions, a few drops of blood had appeared upon the leaves which covered the ground. Many imputed this unaccountable disappearance to treachery, and suggested, as an unanswerable argument, that the men thus surprised might at least have fired their muskets, and communicated the alarm to the contiguous posts. Others, who could not be brought to consider it as treachery, were content to receive it as a mystery which time would unravel.

One morning, the sentinels having been stationed as usual overnight, the guard went out at sunrise to relieve a post which extended a considerable distance into the wood. The sentinel was gone! the surprise was great; but the circumstance had occurred before. They left another man, and departed, wishing him better luck. 'You need not be afraid,' said the man with warmth; 'I shall not desert!'

The relief company returned to the guard-house. The sentinels were replaced every four hours, and at the appointed time the guard again marched to relieve the post. To their inexpressible astonishment, the man was gone! They searched round the spot, but no traces could be found of his disappearance. It was necessary that