"Not so werry good. She are a-headin' putty straight fur the Saragossa Sea, but, ef her skipper aren't crazy, she won't go there; 'cos w'y, it are not no place fur no sensible pusson to go, w'ich the same I know, havin' bin there in a bark edzackly like that one; but I ain't goin' no more, leastways not ef I know I'm goin', w'ich the same the other time I didn't." "Oh," exclaimed George, quite carried away by this unwonted flow of eloquence, "please tell us all about that?" "But wait a moment," interposed Henry. "Where is the Saragossa Sea? I don't remember that in my geography." "The Saragossa Sea, my son," said the Old Sailor, gravely, "are not one o' them seas wot's surrounded by land. Contrariwise, it are surrounded by water." "A sea surrounded by water!" "Them are it. This 'ere sea are jess a part o' the Atlantic Ocean to the east'ard o' the West Injies. It are a place w'ere the current goes around in a sort o' ring, an' the sea-weed an' decayin' wegetables an' other sich truck out o' the Gulf gits out there, an' there it stays. It ain't s'posed to be a werry good sort o' place fur sailin', an' Cap'ns allers steers clear o' 't, onless, o' course, they gits blowed into 't by a storm, an' then steerin' don't clear nothin'. Nobody don't know werry much about that there place, 'ceptin' Cap'n Peleg Mahoney, Willum Smitzer, fust mate, the crew o' the iron bark _Ham Bone_, an' this 'ere werry identical Old Sailor wot are a-talkin' to ye." The mariner paused for a moment to collect his memories, gazed keenly at the western sky, muttered something about clewing up a "bloomin' sky-scraper," and then started thus: "The iron bark _Ham Bone_ were a most wonderful trotter off the wind; but any other way she made so much leeway that she were mos' ginerally occipied in climbin' up hill from the place w'ere she ortn't to be to the place w'ere she ort, an' mos' ginerally not gittin' there. I shipped on to her in Liverpool as second mate, Willum Smitzer, him bein' a bloomin' Dutchman an' also fust mate. We wuz bound fur Jamaiky with a cargo o' plum-puddin', bottled soda, an' misfit clothes." "Misfit clothes?"