“Now, master rascallion of a wrecker,” cried the disentangled mariner, “tit for tat is fair play all the world over; and, unless you hand me back again my thousand dollars, I’ll cut the tow rope of your thievish-looking boat, and then, instead of returning evil for evil, as I ought by rights to do, I’ll be more of a Christian, and do you a very great service, by carrying you away from one of the most infamous places in the world, to the finest country imaginable—I mean America. And as you seem to have a certain touch of black blood in your veins, I may chance to get good interest for my loan of these thousand dollars, by selling you as a slave in Charleston negro market! What say you, my gay Mudian?” We lay, moored in Murray’s anchorage at Bermuda, for the greater part of the winters both of 1802 and of 1803. The war had not yet broken out, and, in the absence of active service, we were fain to catch hold of any thing to amuse and occupy ourselves. The master, and a gang of youngsters who were fond of navigation, set about surveying the coral reefs already mentioned. This party of philosophers, as they were of course dubbed, landed on St. David’s Head, and other conspicuous points of land, to ascertain the longitude with more care; to observe the latitude and the variation of the compass; or to measure the perpendicular rise and fall of the tides; or, lastly, and much the most frequently, to have a good hour’s swim in the deliciously-warm sea. It will be easily understood, that all and each of these inquiries furnished to those persons, whose duty and pleasure it was to attend to them, an inexhaustible field of occupation, and of interest likewise. At first sight, many of these pursuits may appear trivial; but it ought to be recollected, that, although it be easy enough to make the observations enumerated, and many others of the same nature, in a rough sort of way, there is hardly any one of them which, if it be required to be done in the best possible style, does not demand much attention and labour. For example, it seems a very simple affair to draw a base or straight line on the ground; but if this line is required to be, very exactly, of a particular length, so as to be neither more nor less, the problem is one of the utmost difficulty, which has fully exercised, and still employs, the talents of some of the ablest engineers of the day. In fact, these refinements in surveying and in observing, are pretty much like the pound of flesh question in the Merchant of Venice; with one comfortable difference, that the philosopher’s neck is not in such danger, even if, in a base of half-a-dozen miles, he should happen to err in the estimation of half-a-dozen hairs-breadths! It is well for young officers to recollect, however, that there is still a tolerably formidable professional tribunal, before which a man who undertakes such tasks is apt to be arraigned, and, if found wanting, pretty severely dealt with.