"Remember, lads," said he, "what the captain was telling you. If it were not for them mists, how could the rivers of the north be supplied with their waters, and the fields of our own land be made fertile? Thank God rather that you are thus enabled to see more of the wonders of creation." I never forgot this remark of Cousin Silas. A delightful writer, now well-known, describing the subject, calls it "The Circle of Blessing." [Mrs Alfred Gatty, in her "Parables from Nature."] Making sail, we soon lost sight of that white-topped rock. Soon afterward Gerard rushed down one morning at daybreak into our berth, and, rousing me up, told me I was wanted on deck. Half asleep, I jumped up, and slipping my legs into my trousers--for no other garment was required in that latitude--ran with him where he led me forward. I had scarcely got my eyes open when I found myself seized by two shaggy monsters; and hearing the sound of a conch shell, I looked up, and saw before me, as if he had just come over the bows of the ship, a strange-looking personage, with a glittering crown on his head, a huge red nose, long streaming hair, and white whiskers as big as two mops. In his hand he held a trident, and over his shoulders was worn a mantle covered with strange devices. "Trite!--where's Trite? Come along, Trite!" he exclaimed, in a gruff voice--which sounded not altogether unlike that of old Ben Yool's--as he looked over the bows; and presently he handed up a lady of very ample dimensions, who certainly, except for a petticoat and a necklace of shells, I should not have suspected to have belonged to the fair sex. "Oh, there you are, my lovie! We must be sharp about our work, for we have so many ships to board that we haven't a moment to lose. Now, if there are any young shavers who hasn't crossed the middle of my kingdom before, let them be brought up here in quarter less than no time, or I'll do--I'll do--I'll do what you shall see." This was said in a terrifically gruff voice. Before I had time to look about me, the two monsters had dragged me forward before his marine majesty and his spouse; and one producing a huge cold tar brush, and the other a piece of rusty hoop, I found my face paid over with some most odorous lather. I cried out to Jerry, who I thought, as a friend, ought to help me; but he pretended to be in a dreadful fright, and when the monsters ran after him he managed to shove so violently against me that he sent me head first into a large tub of water which stood at the feet of Neptune. I was, however, immediately hauled out by the shaggy Tritons, and after a fresh application of lather, my face was scraped over with the piece of hoop.