part I see no wit in it.

"Pipe the hammocks down, Mr. Seymour; give them half an hour, and then call the watch," orders his lordship.

"Ay, ay, sir!" responds the first lieutenant. "Stand by the hammocks, Mr. Savage."

"Twhit-twhit!" gs the boatswain's call, followed by a voice like a distant thunderclap, "Hammocks ahoy!" and away flies every man to the nettings; but not a lashing is touched till the whole have found owners, (the occupation of a minute,) when the first lieutenant's "Pipe down!" draws forth a lark-like chirping of the calls, and in a few seconds the whole have disappeared; even the hammock-men to the young gentlemen have fetched their duplicate, and the cloths are rolled up for the night. The gallant Nelson had his coffin publicly exhibited in his cabin; but what of that? the seaman constantly sleeps in his coffin, for such is his hammock should he die at sea.

Lord Eustace has retired to his cabin, and the officers are pacing to and fro the quarter-deck, conversing on

"Promotion, mess-debts, absent friends, and love."

The glory of the day is on the wane; the full round moon arises bright and beautiful, like a gigantic pearl from the coral caverns of the ocean; but there is a sort of sallow mistiness upon the verge of the western horizon, tinged with vermeil streaks from the last rays of the setting sun, that produce feelings of an undefined and undefinable nature: yet there is nothing threatening, for all is delightfully tranquil; no cloud appears to excite apprehensions, for there is a smile upon the face of the heavens, and its dimples are reflected on the surface of the clear waters as assurances of safety. Yet, why are there many keen and experienced eyes glancing at that sickly aspect of the west, as if it were something which tells them of sudden squalls, of whirling hurricanes, like the unnatural flush that gives warning of approaching fever.

"The captain will be happy to have the company of the gun-room officers, to wind up the day, sir," said his lordship's steward, addressing the first lieutenant.

"The gun-room officers, much obliged, will wait upon his lordship," returned Mr. Seymour; then, turning to Mr. Parallel, "Come, master; what attracts your attention there to windward? The captain has sent us an invitation to take our grog with him. Are you ready?"

"Ay, ay!" responded the old man, "with pleasure; his lordship means to make Saturday night of it, I suppose; and I must own it has been a precious long week, though, according to the log, it's ounly Thursday."

The cabin of Lord Eustace had nothing splendid about it; the guns were secured by the tackles, ready for instant use, and everything was plain and simple; the deck was carpeted, and the furniture, handsome of its kind, more suited for utility than show. The baize-covered table was amply supplied with wines, spirits, and liquors, which his lordship prided himself in never having but of the best quality; and a jovial party sat around to enjoy the invigorating cheer.

"Gentlemen," said his lordship, rising, "The King!"

Heartily was that toast drunk, for never was monarch more affectionately served by his royal navy than George the Third. Other toasts were given, national and characteristic songs were sung; the relaxation of discipline loosened the restraints on harmony, and that kindly feeling prevailed which forms the best bond of union amongst the officers, and commands respect and esteem from the men.

"Come, Mr. Nugent, have you nothing new to give us? no fresh effusion of the muse?" enquired his lordship.

"As for any thing fresh," said old Parallel, "I know he puts us all into a pretty pickle with his 'briny helement,' and in his 'salt-sea sprays,' everlasting spouting like a fin-back at play; what with him and the marines' flutes I suffer a sort of cable-laid torture."

"You've no taste for ptry, master," returned the young officer: "but come, I'll give you my last song; Plumstone has set it to music;" and with a clear sonorous voice he sang the following:

"Hail to the flag--the gallant flag! Britannia's proudest boast; Her herald o'er the distant sea, the guardian of her coast; Where'er 'tis spread, on field or flood, the blazonry of fame; And Britons hail its mastery with shouts of loud acclaim.

Hail to the flag--the gallant flag! in battle or in blast; Whether 'tis hoisted at the peak, or nail'd to splinter'd mast; Though rent by service or by shot, all tatter'd it may be, Old England's tars shall still maintain its dread supremacy.

Hail to the flag--the gallant flag, that Nelson proudly bore, When hostile banners waved aloft, amid the cannon's roar! When France and Spain in unison the deadly battle close, And deeper than its own red hue the vital current flows.

Hail to the flag--the gallant flag! for it is Victory's own, Though Trafalgar re-echs still the hero's dying groan; The Spaniards dows'd their jaundiced rag on that eventful day, And Gallic eagles humbly crouch'd, acknowledging our sway.

Hail to the flag--the gallant flag! come, hoist it once again; And show the haughty nations round, our throne is on the main; Our ships are crowns and sceptres, whose titles have no flaw, And legislators are our guns dispensing cannon law.

Once more then hail the gallant flag! the seaman's honest pride, Who loves to see it flaunt the breeze, and o'er the ocean ride; Like the genius of his country, 'tis ever bold and free; And he will prove, where'er it flies, we're sovereigns of the sea."

"Very fair, very fair, Mr. Nugent," said his lordship; "and not badly sung, either."

"Ay, ay, my lord, the youngster's well enough," chimed in old Parallel; "but, what with his ptry and book-making, I'm half afraid he'll forget the traverse-tables altogether."

"And pray how ds the book-making, as the master calls it, get on, Nugent?" inquired the captain: "have you made much progress?"

"I have commenced, my lord," returned the junior lieutenant, pulling out some papers from his pocket; "and, with your lordship's permission----"

"You'll inflict it upon us," grumbled the old master, and shrugging up his shoulders as he perceived his messmate was actually about to read, whether the captain sanctioned it or not.

"Now then, attention to my introduction!" said Nugent, holding up the manuscript, heedless of the nods and winks of his companions; "I'm sure you'll like it. 'The moon is high in the mid heavens, and not a single envious cloud frowns darkly upon her fair loveliness; there is a flood of silvery light; and fleecy vapours, with their hoary crests, like snow-wreaths from the mountain top, float on its surface to do honour to the queen of night. The winds are sporting with the waters; the amorous waves are heaving up their swelling bosoms to be kissed by the warm breeze that comes laden with perfumes from the sunny clime of Italy. There is a glow of crimson lingering in the west, as if departing day blushed for her wanton sister. Hail, thou inland sea, upon whose breast the gallant hers of the British isles have fought and conquered! Ancient history recounts thy days of old, and the bold shores that bind thee in their arms stand as indubitable records of the truth of Holy Writ. The tall ship, reflected on thy ocean mirror, seems to view her symmetry in silent exultation, as if conscious of her grandeur and her beauty, her majesty and her might. The giantess of the deep, her lightnings sleeping and her thunders hushed, dances lightly o'er thy mimic billows, and curtseys to the gentle gale.' There, my lord, that is the way I begin: and I appeal to your well-known judgment whether it is not a pretty picture, and highly ptical."

"A pretty picture truly," grumbled old Parallel: "it ounly wants a squadron of angels seated with their bare starns upon the wet clouds, scudding away before it like colliers in the Sevin, and in one corner the heads of a couple o' butcher's boys blowing wooden skewers, and then it would be complete. Why, there's the marine a-laughing at you. Talk about the winds kissing the waves, indeed. Ay, ay, young sir, when you've worked as many reckonings as ould Will Parallel,--and that's myself,--you'll find 'em kiss somat else, or you'll have better luck than your neighbours. Why don't you stick to Natur, if you mean to write a book? and how'll the log stand then?--Why, His Majesty's ship Spankaway cruising in the Mediterranean: and if you've worked your day's work, you ought to know the latitude and longitude. Well, there she is, with light winds and fine weather, under double-reefed top-sels, jib, and spanker, the courses snugly hauled up, the t'gant-sels furled in a skin as smooth as an infant's, the staysels nicely stowed, and not a yard of useless canvass abroad. There'd be some sense in that, and everybody would understand it; but as for your kissing and blushing, and such like stuff, why it's all nonsense."

"That's always the way with you matter-o'-fact men," retorted the lieutenant: "you make no allowance for the colourings of the imagination; your ideas of the picturesque never go beyond the ship's paint."

"But they do, though, my young friend," asseverated the master, to the great amusement of all present. "Show me the ship's paint that can compare with the ruby lustre of this fine old port--here's a discharge of grape."

"That's a metaphor, master," said the purser; "and, moreover,"--and he seemed to shudder at the abomination,--"it is a pun."

"Ay, ay," answered the veteran, holding up his glass to the light, and eyeing its contents with evident satisfaction, "we've often met afore; and as for the pun, I'll e'en swallow it;" and he drank off his wine amidst a general laugh. "But do you really mean to write a book, Nugent?"

"I do, indeed, master," answered the lieutenant; "but whether it will be read or not is an affair for others to determine. I've got as far as I have repeated to you, and must now pick up incidents and characters."

"A bundle of shakings and a head-rope of wet swabs!" uttered the old master contemptuously. "Stick to your log-book, Mr. Nugent, if ever you hopes to get command of such a sweet craft as this here, of which I have the honour to be the master. Larn to keep the ship's reck'ning, and leave authorship to the poor devils who starves by it. There's ounly two books as ever I look at--Hamilton Moore and the Bible; and though I never yet sailed in a craft that rated a parson in commission, yet I make out the latter tolerably well, notwithstanding my edication sometimes gets jamm'd in a clinch, and my knowledge thrown slap aback: but that's all nat'ral; for how can a man work to wind'ard through a narrow passage without knowing somut o' the soundings or the outline o' the coast. Howsomever, there's one course as is plain enough, and I trust it will carry me clear at last,--to do my duty by my king, God bless him!--and whilst the yards of conscience are squared by the lifts and braces of honesty, I have no fear but I shall cheat the devil of one messmate, and that's ould Will--myself."

"A toast, gentlemen--a toast!" exclaimed his lordship in high animation; "'The master of the Spankaway and his lady-mate.'"

"I beg pardon, my lord," interrupted the surgeon, "the master is not married; he is yet a solitary bachelor."

"True--most true," chimed in Nugent, laughing; "for, according to the words of the pt,

"None but himself can be his PARALLEL."

"You are too fastidious, gentlemen," said his lordship: "remember, it is 'Wives and sweethearts;' and, as it is a favourite toast of mine, we will, if you please, drink it standing." The toast was drunk with all due honours. "And now," continued his lordship, "without further preface, I shall volunteer a song, which Nugent may hoist into his book, if he pleases.

"Drink, drink to dear woman, whose beautiful eye, Like the diamond's rich lustre or gem in the sky, Is beaming with rapture, full, sparkling, and bright-- Here's woman, the soul of man's choicest delight.

CHORUS. Then fill up a bumper, dear woman's our toast, Our comfort in sorrows--in pleasure our boast.

Drink, drink to dear woman, and gaze on her smile; Love hides in those dimples his innocent guile: 'Tis a signal for joy--'tis a balm for all w;-- Here's woman, dear woman, man's heaven below.

CHORUS. Then fill up a bumper, dear woman's our toast, Our comfort in sorrow--in pleasure our boast.

Drink, drink to dear woman, and look on her tear:-- Is it pain?--is it grief?--is it hope?--is it fear? Oh! kiss it away, and believe whilst you press, Here's woman, dear woman, man's friend in distress.

CHORUS. Then fill up a bumper, dear woman's our toast, Our comfort in sorrow--in pleasure our boast.

Drink, drink to dear woman, whose exquisite form Was never design'd to encounter the storm, Yet should sickness assail us, or trouble o'ercast, Here's woman, dear woman, man's friend to the last.

CHORUS. Then fill up a bumper, dear woman's our toast, Our comfort in sorrow--in pleasure our boast."

As in duty bound, this song elicited great applause, and Nugent declared he should most certainly avail himself of his lordship's proposal for inserting it in his book. "But you have done nothing, Mr. Nugent," said the captain. "You say you want incident and character. You have already taken the frigate for your text;--there's the master now, a perfect character."

"For the love of good old port," exclaimed Parallel, as if alarmed, "let me beg of you not to gibbet me in your consarn. But I'm not afraid of it; book-making requires some head-piece; there's nothing to be done without a head, nor ever has been."

"I must differ with you there, Mr. Parallel," said Seymour unobtrusively; "for I myself saw a very difficult thing done literally without a head.

"Galvanised, I suppose," uttered the doctor in a tone of inquiry; "the power of the battery is wonderful."

"There assuredly was a battery, doctor," responded the lieutenant, laughing; "and a very heavy one too. But the event I'm speaking of had no connexion with galvanism: it was sheer muscular motion."

"Out with it, Seymour!"--"Let's have it by all means!"--"It will be an incident for Nugent!"--"Out with it!" burst forth simultaneously from all.

"It certainly is curious," said the first lieutenant, assuming much gravity of countenance, "and happened when I was junior luff of the old Sharksnose. We were running into Rio Janeiro man-o'-war fashion, with a pennant as long as a purser's account at the masthead, and a spanking ensign hoisted at the gaff-end, with a fly that would have swept all the sheep off of the Isle of Wight. Away we gallop'd along, when a shot from Santa Cruz, the three-deck'd battery at the entrance, came slap into our bows. 'Tell him we're pretty well, thanky,' shouted the skipper; and our jolly first, who took his meaning, literally pointed the fokstle gun, clapp'd the match to the priming, and off went the messenger, which struck the sentry, who was pacing his post, right between the shoulders, and whipt off his head as clean as you would snap a carrot; he was a stout-made powerful-looking man, and by sheer muscular motion, as I said before, his head flew up from his body at least a fathom and a half, and actually descended upon the point of his bayonet, where it stuck fast, and the unfortunate fellow walked the whole length of the rampart in that way; nor was it till he got to the turn, and was steering round to come back again, that he discovered the loss of his head, when, according to the most approved practice in similar surgical cases, he fell to the ground. It was sheer muscular motion, gentlemen,--sheer muscular motion."

"He would, no doubt, have been a good mussulman, Seymour, if he had been a Turk," said his lordship.

"He couldn't come the right-about face," said Peabody, "having lost his head. It would have been a comical sight to have seen him present arms; pray did he come to the present?"

"No, nor yet to the recover, I'll be sworn," observed Plumstone; "no doubt he grounded his arms and his head too."

"Them chance shots often do the most mischief," remarked Parallel. "Who would have thought that it would have gone right through his chest, so as to leave him a headless trunk. Pray may I ax you whether he was near his box?"

"Well hove and strong, master," exclaimed Sinnitt, joining in the general laugh; "your wit equals your beauty."

"What have I said that's witty now?" returned the veteran; "I can't open my mouth to utter a word of truth, or to ax a question, but I'm called a wit; for my part, I see no wit in it."

"Your anecdote," said his lordship, "reminds me of something similar that I witnessed, when a youngster, at one of the New Zealand Isles. Our captain took a party of us to see his dun-coloured majesty at court. The monarch was seated in a mud, or rather clay building, nearly in a state of nudity, his only covering being an old uniform coat and a huge cocked-hat: his queens--happy man! I think he had seventy--not quite so decently dressed as himself, were squatting, or lying down, in different directions; several of them with such ornaments through their lips and noses, as would have answered the purpose of rings in the decks to a stopper'd best bower cable. I heartily wish some of our court ladies could have seen this royal spectacle. We were ushered in through an entrance, on each side of which was a pile of heads without tails to them, most probably dropped in their hurry to wait upon the king. His majesty was a man of mild countenance, and of most imperturbable gravity; behind him stood a gigantic-looking rascal, with an enormous dragoon's sabre over his shoulder, by way of warning to his majesty's wives not to disturb his majesty's repose, or it was amongst the chances of royalty that he would shorten their bodies and their days at the same moment,--a sort of summary process to make good women of them; and I began to suspect that some of those which we saw at the entrance had once touched noses with his most disgusting majesty,--for a filthier fellow I never set eyes on. You've, no doubt, seen some of those curiously figured heads which grow upon New Zealand shoulders, for many have been brought to England: our skipper, who was a sort of collector of curiosities, was extremely desirous of obtaining one, but he was aware that it was only the head men who were thus marked or tattod, and he had run his eye over the samples at the doorway, but could not detect one chief who had been deprived of his caput. Nevertheless, by signs and through means of a Scotch interpreter, (for the prime minister to Longchewfishcow was a Scotchman,) his majesty was informed of the captain's wish; and in a short time several natives handsomely tattod were drawn up within the building: the skipper was requested to select the figures which pleased him most; and he, imagining that the chiefs had been exhibited merely by way of pattern, fixed upon one whose features appeared to have had pricked off upon them every day's run of the children of Israel when cruising in the wilderness. The chief bowed in token of satisfaction at being thus highly honoured; but, before he could raise his head, it sprang away from his shoulders into the captain's arms, with thanks for the compliment yet passing from the lips:--the life-guardsman of the king had obeyed his majesty's signal, and the dragoon's sabre had made sharp work of it."

"It was quick and dead," said the old master. "Now, Mr. Nugent, you may begin your book as soon as you please. I'm sure you have plenty of heads to work upon."

"You talk as if I had no head of my own, master," retorted the lieutenant, somewhat offended; "and with all your wit you shall find that I have got a head."

"So has a scupper-nail," returned the veteran, "but it requires a deal of hammering before you can get it to the leather."

"Good-humour, gentlemen! good-humour!" said the captain, laughing; "no recriminations, if you please, or we shall bring some of your heads to the block."

"To make blockheads of 'em, I suppose," observed old Parallel; "by every rope in the top, but that's done already! Howsomever, as you are lecturing upon heads, why I'll just relate an anecdote of a circumstance that I was eyewitness to upwards of thirty years ago. I was then just appointed acting-master of the 'Never-so-quick,' one o' your ould ship sloops; and we were cruising in among the West Ingee islands, but more especially boxing about the island of Cuba, and that way, for pirates. Well, one morning at daybreak the look-out had just got upon the foretopsel-yard, when word was passed that there were two sail almost alongside of each other, and dead down to looard of us. There was a nice little breeze, and so we ups stick, squares the yards, and sets the stud'nsels a both sides, to run down and overhaul the strangers, though we made pretty certain it was a pirate plundering a capture; and we was the more convinced of the fact when broad daylight came, and our glasses showed that one of 'em was a long low schooner, just such a one as the picarooning marauders risk'd their necks in, and certainly better judges of a swift craft never dipp'd their hands in a tar-bucket. She saw us a-coming, and away she pay'd off before the wind, and up went a squaresel of light duck that dragg'd the creatur along beautifully. The other craft, a large brig, lay quite still with her maintopsel to the mast, except that she came up and fell off as if her helm was lash'd a-lee, Now the best point of the ould Never-so-quick's sailing was right afore it, and so we not only held our own, but draw'd upon the vagabond thief that was doing his best to slip his head out of a hangman's noose, when it fell stark calm, the brig lying about midway between his Majesty's ship and the devil's own schooner. Out went her sweeps, and out went our boats; but she altered her course to get in shore, and without a breath of wind they swept her along at the rate of four knots and a half, whilst our ould beauty would hardly move; so the captain recalls the boats, and orders 'em to overhaul the brig. We got alongside about noon, a regular wasting burning hot noon; and we found a hand cut off at the wrist grasping one of the main-chain plates, so that it could hardly be disengaged."

"Muscular power!" said Seymour; "the death-grapple, no doubt! astonishing tenacity notwithstanding."

"Howsomever, we did open the fingers," continued the master, "and found by its delicate whiteness, and a ring on the wedding-finger, that it belonged to a woman. When we got on board, the blood in various parts of the quarter-deck, and at the gangways, indicated the murderous tragedy that had been acted; but no semblance of human being could we find except a head,--a bloody head that seemed to have been purposely placed upon a flour-cask that was upended near the windlass. 'Well, I'm bless'd,' says one of our boasun's-mates, who had steered the pinnace,--'I'm bless'd if they arn't shaved you clean enough at any rate; but d--my tarry trousers, look at that!--why then I'm a Dutchman if it arn't winking at me.'--'Bathershin!' says an Irish topman, 'it's stretching his daylights he is, mightily plased to see such good company;' and sure enough the eyes were rolling about in a strange fashion for a head as had no movables to consort to it; and presently the mouth opened wide, and then the teeth snap'd to again, just like a cat-fish at St. Jago's. 'It's a horrible sight,' said one of the cutters, 'and them fellows'll go to ---- for it, that's one consolation; but ain't it mighty queer, sir, that a head without ever a body should be arter making such wry faces, and opening and shutting his sallyport, seeing as he's scratched out of his mess?' A hideous grin distorted every feature,--so hideous that it made me shudder; and first one eye and then the other opened in rapid succession. 'I say, Jem,' says one of the pinnaces to the boasun's-mate,--'I say, Jem, mayhap the gentleman wants a bit o' pig-tail, for most likely he arn't had a chaw since he lost his 'bacca-box.' This sally, with the usual recklessness of seamen, produced a general laugh, which emboldened Jem to take out his quid, and, watching an opportunity, he claps it into between the jaws; but before he could gather in the slack of his arm, the teeth were fast hold of his fingers, and there he was, jamm'd like Jackson, and roaring out ten thousand murders. He tried to snatch his hand away, but the head held on to the cask like grim death against the doctor; at last away it roll'd over and Jem got clear, but the head stuck fast, and then we discovered that there was a body inside. The head of the cask had been taken out, and a hole cut hardly large enough to admit of the poor fellow's neck; but nevertheless it had been hoop'd up again, and when we got on board he was in the last convulsive gasps of strangulation. We released him immediately, but it was only to find him so shockingly mutilated that he died in about ten minutes afterwards; and not a soul was left to tell us the fatal tale, though from an ensign and some shreds of papers we conjectured the brig was a Spaniard. The pirates had scuttled her. She made water too fast to think of saving her, and in a couple of hours she went down."

"Thankye, master, thankye," exclaimed several; "why we shall have you writing a book before long, and you'll beat Nugent out and out. See, he's ready to yield the palm."

"Him!" uttered the old man, with a look expressive of rather more contempt than the young lieutenant merited. "Him!"

"Come, master," said Nugent, "we _must_ have your song,--it is your turn next."

"So it appears," replied the old man, as the frigate suddenly heeled over. "You have had so much singing that even the winds must have a _squall_." They were rising hastily from their seats, when in an instant the frigate was nearly thrown on her beam-ends. Away went Parallel right over the table into the stomach of the marine Peabody, whom he capsized; and before another moment elapsed the gallant captain and his officers were scrambling between the guns to leeward, and half buried in water, amidst broken decanters and glasses, sea-biscuit and bottles. Old Parallel grasped a decanter of port that was clinking its sides against a ring-bolt, and, unwilling that so much good stuff should be wasted, clapped the mouth to his own; the purser was fishing for his wig, as he was extremely tenacious on the score of his bald head; the captain and Seymour were trying for the door; the doctor got astride one gun, and the two marine officers struggled for the other, so that as fast as one got hold his messmate unhorsed him again. Sinnitt had crawled up to the table, and Nugent twisted his coat-laps round him to preserve his MS. from becoming saturated. The frigate righted again. His lordship and his lieutenants rushed on deck, to behold the three topmasts, with all their lengths of upper spars, hanging over the side, having in a white squall been snapped short off by the caps. We will leave them in the present to

"Call all hands to clear the wreck."

REMAINS OF HAJJI BABA.

It appears that Hajji Baba, the Persian adventurer, known in this country as the author of certain memoirs, is no more. In what particular manner he quitted this world, we have not been able to ascertain; but, through the kindness of a friend recently returned from the East, we have been put in possession of the fragment of a Journal written by him, by which we learn that he once again visited England (although incog.) some time after the passing of the Reform bill. The view which he, his Shah, and his nation, took of that event, is so characteristic of the ignorance in which Eastern people live in matters relative to Europe, and to England in particular, that we deem ourselves fortunate in being able to lay so curious a document before our readers, and shall take the liberty, from time to time, to insert portions of it, until it be entirely exhausted.