JOURNAL OF A VOYAGE TO INDIA. xix drawn, though, notwithstanding the superiority of his talents, he does not, as a rich and vivid portrait, so completely please and amuse me, as James I. in "Nigel." Yet between the two monarchs there are many points of resemblance. Ludovic Leslie is but a very ordinary daubing of the Scots mercenary soldier, and only serves to remind us, unpleasantly, of Dugald Dalgetty, and most absurdly, and to the ruin of the conclusion of the story blunders at its end into the triumph which the wishes of the readers had reserved for his nephew. Quentin himself is precisely the Page of "the Abbot:" a raw lively lad, thrown by accident into situations of great interest and intricacy, and, in no very probable manner, and by no great merit of his own, rising from poverty and obscurity to fame and great wealth, and the enjoyment of the object of his affections. The other characters, male and female, are mere sketches, but sketches of great talent and vivacity. I like them all, from the grave, courtly, sententious and tipsy old soldier Lord Crawford, down to the good-natured, stupid burghers of Leige, and the weeping and the laughing executioner. I would except, however, Hayraddin the Bohemian, whose sketch I think a complete failure; however ambitiously intended (and he seems to have been a favourite with the author) he is a very tame compound of Meg Merrilies, of Ronald Mac Eagh in "the Legend of Montrose," of Pacolet in "the Pirate," and of the dumb lady in the service of the Countess of Derby, as if a man, in his ambition after a new beverage, should XX JOURNAL OF A VOYAGE TO INDIA. pour wine, whiskey, beer, and raspberry-vinegar into the same cup. And after all, Hayraddin, with all his talk about planets, palmistry, and atheism, does nothing but what a mere ordinary spy would have done as well, and what, if he had been employed to do, he never would have attempted under the disadvantage of any peculiarities of dress and manner. But though it is very easy to find fault with Quentin Durward, it is decidedly better than many of Scott's later works, nor is there any man now living but Walter Scott who could have written it. So ends the last critique that I shall, in all probability, compose for a long time to come! On the 21st we had the same gentle breeze, which, though now shifted to nearly due North, answered our purpose extremely well. Our latitude this day at noon was 48° 9′ long. W. 7° 21′. The weather fine, though cruelly cold for Midsummer. I was this morning engaged by Scoresby's voyage to old Greenland, in 1822, but I find two circumstances for which, at sea, I was by no means prepared :-that, namely, we have no great time for study; and that for me, at least, there is so much which interests and occupies me, that I have no apprehensions of time hanging heavy on my hands. June 22.—This day, being Sunday, the decks were all beautifully clean, having been well scrubbed on Saturday night. The awning was spread over the quarter-deck, and the capstan and sides JOURNAL OF A VOYAGE TO INDIA. xxi of the vessel concealed and ornamented with flags of different nations. Chairs were set for the officers and passengers on the poop, and round the afterpart of the deck, and spars laid across the remainder as seats for the sailors, who attended church in clean shirts and trowsers, and well washed and shaved. In the space between the capstan and half-deck was a small table set for me and the purser, who acted as clerk, and I read prayers, and preached one of my Hodnet Sermons, slightly altered, to a very attentive and orderly congregation, of altogether, I should think, 140 persons. The awning made really a handsome church, and the sight was a very pleasing one. June 24.-This morning we were roused, after a night of much vexatious rolling, by the intelligence that a sail was in sight, by which we might send letters to England. I had some ready and finished others. She was pretty close with us at about eight; a small dark-sided brig, of very beautiful build, and with a British pendant, which made her pass for a man of war, though, on a nearer approach, the apparent slovenliness of her equipment, and a crowd of foreign and dirty-looking people on board, gave rise to various conjectures. Captain Manning hoisted out one of his cutters with ten oars, besides the quarter-master and the midshipman who commanded, a handsome boat, making, from the appearance of the men, and their discipline, a show little inferior to that of a man of war. He sent our letters, together with two newspapers, xxii JOURNAL OF A VOYAGE TO INDIA. and two bottles of milk, a present which he said would fairly pay for the carriage of our despatches to England. She turned out to be a Falmouth packet, nine days out of Lisbon, crowded with different adventurers who had volunteered their services to the Spaniards and Portuguese, and were now returning dispirited and disappointed. About noon several porpoises were seen, and a remarkable fish passed the ship, which some of the sailors called a devil-fish, others, I believe more correctly, a sun-fish. It was a very large and nearly circular flat fish, with, apparently, some rather vivid colours about it, like those tints which are ⚫ found in the jelly-fish. It impelled itself forward by lashing the water with its tail, and swam exactly on a level with the surface, I, at first, thought that it was dead, but was soon satisfied to the contrary. The sailors seemed to regard it as a curiosity. The afternoon was cloudy, cold, and rainy, a bad summer's day in England, and what I should have still less expected in the parallel of Spain. June 25.-We had this day a considerable swell with a foul wind, though not much of it. A grampus came close to the ship and played round us for some time. In his apparent size he disappointed me, though every body said that if he had been on deck, he would have measured fourteen or fifteen feet. He presented, as I should conceive, a complete miniature of a whale, blowing out water in JOURNAL OF A VOYAGE TO INDIA. xxiii the same manner. I find, indeed, that Captain Manning, and most persons on board, suppose that the grampus is only a young whale; another, or the same grampus, in the course of the day was seen chased by a group of porpoises, and a real (or full grown) whale was also seen, but I was not then on deck. The wind sunk again before evening; a number of little birds, like swallows, continued flying on the surface of the water and piping. The seamen called them "mother Carey's chickens," and said that a storm might be expected. Accordingly, on the wind rising a little after sun-set, all hands were called to take in the royal or upper top-gallant sails, and the company were told off with a reference to the duties expected from them with more than usual hurry. It blew hard about ten o'clock, and from two to three the storm was regarded as serious. On the morning of the 26th nothing remained but a violent rolling and pitching sea. June 30.-Two brigs were seen in the offing in the same course with ourselves, one of which gained on us fast, and overtook us about 3 p. m. She was the Christiana of Liverpool, in ballast, bound for Bahia, and to touch at Madeira by the way. An opportunity thus offered of sending our letters to the latter place, and thence to England. The poop of the ship would be no bad place for air, study, or recreation, (it is indeed used as such |