The _Flora_ was a small brig, very old, very dirty, and with wretched accommodations. The captain was a brutal-looking person, blind of one eye, and very lame. Every third word he uttered was an oath; and instead of answering Mr. Lyndsay’s inquiries, he was engaged in a blasphemous dialogue with his two sons, who were his first and second mates. The young men seemed worthy of their parentage; their whole conversation being interloaded with frightful imprecations on their own limbs and souls, and the limbs and souls of others. They had a very large number of steerage passengers engaged, for the very small size of the vessel, and these emigrants were of the very lowest description. “Don’t let us go in this horrible vessel,” whispered Flora to her husband. “What a captain! what a crew! we shall be miserable, if we form any part of her live cargo!” “I fear, my dear girl, there is no alternative. We may, perhaps, hear of another before she sails. I won’t engage places in her until the last moment.” The dread of going in the _Flora_ took a hold of the mind of her namesake; and she begged Jim to be on the constant look-out for another vessel. During their stay at Leith, Lyndsay was busily employed in writing a concluding chapter to his work on the Cape; and Flora amused herself by taking long walks, accompanied by James, the maid, and the baby, in order to explore all the beauties of Edinburgh. The lad, who was very clever, and possessed a wonderful faculty of remembering places and of finding his way among difficulties, always acted as guide on these occasions. Before he had been a week at Leith, he knew every street in Edinburgh; had twice or thrice climbed the heights of Arthur’s Seat, and visited every nook in the old castle. There was not a ship in the harbour of Leith, but he not only knew her name and the name of her captain, but he had made himself acquainted with some of her crew, and could tell her freight and tonnage, her age and capabilities, the port from which she last sailed and the port to which she was then bound, as well as any sailor on the wharf. It was really extraordinary to listen of an evening to the lad’s adventures, and all the mass of information he had acquired during his long rambles through the day. Flora was always in an agony lest James should be lost, or meet with some mishap during his exploring expeditions; but Mistress Waddel comforted her with the assurance, “That a cat, throw her which way you wu’d, lighted a’ upon her feet. That nought was never tent—an’ they that war’ born to be hanget wu’d never be drowned.”