We rounded the Cape of Good Hope in fine style, the wind being in our favor and carrying us rapidly along. The captain had held well to the southward, so that we barely caught a glimpse of the shores of Africa. We could see the outline of the mountains that form the southern end of that continent, but nothing more than the outline. The day after we passed the Cape of Good Hope I had the watch aloft in the forenoon. Just as it struck eight bells I gave a last look around the horizon before descending to the deck, when my eye caught a speck on the water very nearly abeam of us. It was altogether too far away to be made out, and I hesitated whether to report it or not. Something impelled me to do so, and I hailed the deck and told what I had seen. The captain and first officer were just making their noon observations, and the second mate came aloft to see what I had discovered. He brought the captain's glass, and after a careful scrutiny he said that the object was evidently a boat, but he could not determine if there was any one in it. "We'll settle that very soon," said the captain when the mate had made his report. "Brace the yards around, and run for the boat or whatever else it is." The order was obeyed; and in a little while we hove-to within a hundred yards of the object I had sighted, and which proved to be a boat. Here we lowered the gig with the mate and a crew, and just as it struck the water we saw two heads rising above the gunwale of the strange craft. Then two more appeared; and it was evident that we had rescued four castaways by my discovery. The boat and its inmates were soon at the side of the Aurora, the men were brought on deck, the boat was hoisted in and secured, and our ship filled away on her course. They were part of the crew of an American ship from Boston to Calcutta. She had foundered two days before, and the crew had taken to the boats with the intention of making Cape Town; and we afterwards learned that the other boats were picked up near that port. Judge of my surprise and satisfaction when I found that one of the men we rescued was the son of Samuel Bickford, the man at whose house David and I were entertained on our first night away from home, as told in the second chapter of this narrative. Certainly I had repaid his hospitality which I had never forgotten. In fact, I was thinking about it not more than five minutes before I saw the speck on the water.