[1] See Capt. Scoresby’s exceedingly curious and valuable Account of the Whale Fishery in the Arctic Regions, vol. i. p. 467. CHAPTER V. MIDSHIPMEN’S PRANKS. During the long winters of our slothful discontent at Bermuda, caused by the Peace of Amiens, the grand resource, both of the idle and the busy, amongst all classes of the Leander’s officers, was shooting—that never-ending, still-beginning amusement, which Englishmen carry to the remotest corners of the habitable globe—popping away in all countries, thinking only of the game, and often but too reckless of the prejudices or fears of the natives. This propensity is indulged even in those uninhabited regions of the earth which are visited only once in an age; and if Captain Parry had reached the Pole, he would unquestionably have had a shot at the axis of the earth! In the mean time, the officers and the young gentlemen of the flag-ship at Bermuda, in the beginning of 1803, I suppose, to keep their hands in for the war which they saw brewing, and hourly prayed for, were constantly blazing away amongst the cedar groves and orange plantations of those fairy islands, which appeared more and more beautiful after every such excursion. The midshipmen were generally obliged to content themselves with knocking down the blue and the red birds with the ship’s pistols, charged with His Majesty’s gunpowder, and, for want of small shot, with slugs formed by cutting up His Majesty’s musket-bullets. The officers aimed at higher game, and were, of course, better provided with guns and ammunition. Several of these gentlemen had brought from England some fine dogs—high-bred pointers; while the middies, also, not to be outdone, must needs have a dog of their own: they recked very little of what breed; but some sort of animal they said they must have. I forget how we procured the strange-looking beast whose services we contrived to engage; but, having once obtained him, we were not slow in giving him our best affections. It is true, he was as ugly as any thing could possibly be. His colour was a dirty, reddish yellow; and while a part of his hair twisted itself up in curls, a part hung down, quite straight, almost to the ground. He was utterly useless for all the purposes of real sport, but quite good enough to furnish the mids with plenty of fun when they went on shore—in chasing pigs, barking at old, white-headed negresses, and other amusements, suited to the exalted taste and habits of the rising generation of officers.