My companions were a young girl, a free and generous-hearted sailor, two ordinary, every-day travelers, and a pale, and to all appearances, an intellectual youth. I make it a rule, when thrown into the company of strangers, if but for an hour, to make that hour, by conversation, pass as pleasantly as possible; and as I was likely to remain with my present companions for some hours, I determined to draw them into a familiar discourse. Our sailor was a character such as Dibden loved to draw—light-hearted and careless to a fault. At each place, while the horses were being changed, he would dismount, and insist upon treating every one around, spending his hard-earned cash without a thought for to-morrow. He kept us in a roar of laughter for some hours, by the strange tales he told. One, I remember, but it was so interlarded with technical terms, which he explained at the time, that I fear it will lose half its gist by their omission, and the substitution of my shore-going phraseology. “We were cruising off the Bermudas,” said he, “in the summer of 179-. And a blazing summer it was—so hot, that all the sugar on board was turned into hard bake, and the purser’s skin was so dried, that he kept his tally on his face for the rest of the voyage; to say nothing of the captain’s dog, Toby, who was sitting on deck one day, when the pitch in the seams melting, he was held so fast by the stern, that he was unable to cut and run, and was in consequence exposed to the heat of the varticle sun, whereby he caught what the parley-voos call a ‘coop do sol’s heel,’ which, I suppose, means a ‘kick from the sun’s heel.’ Howsomever, that’s as may be. Well, as I said before, we were sailing with a fine steady breeze, at the rate of eight knots an hour, when, all of a sudden, we felt ourselves brought up, as it were, with a round turn. All hands immediately jumped on deck; the skipper came up in a devil of a hurry, swearing that we had struck upon some hidden rock. We sounded but could not find the bottom. The wind was rising and filled the canvas almost to bursting, but not an inch did she move. The skipper was flabbergasted, and the master, an old Northman, said that he thought we were over some magnetical rocks, and, according to the doctrine of substraction, they would draw all the iron out of the bottom, and we should fall to pieces. When, all of a sudden, it strikes Harry Dare-em-all—ah, by the by, he was a fellow—bathing one day in those very seas, he saw a shark as big as a whale coming right upon him. Away swims Harry; down he dives, and up he comes again, but Mr. Sharkey, was close upon his heels, and at last had turned over, ready for a grip, when Harry darts under him, and gives him such a kick in the small of his back, just to help him on the faster, that he broke him in half. The gentleman was hauled on board, and to this day I uses one of his grinders for a baccy-stopper. Well, says Harry, I shouldn’t wonder if