Although from the reception I had met with I had little reason to expect present indulgences or future favors from my kinsman who commanded the brig, I did not regret the step I had taken. On the contrary, my bosom bounded with joy when the last rope was severed, and the vessel on whose decks I proudly stood was actually leaving the harbor of Portsmouth, under full sail, bound to a foreign port. This was no longer "the baseless fabric of a vision." The dream of my early years had come to pass; and I looked forward with all the confidence of youth to a bold and manly career, checkered it might be with toil and suffering, but replete with stirring adventure, whose wild and romantic charms would be cheaply won by wading through a sea of troubles. I now realized the feeling which has since been so well described by the poet: "A life on the ocean wave, A home on the rolling deep, Where the scattered waters rave, And the winds their revels keep. "Like an eagle caged, I pine On this dull, unchanging shore; O, give me the flashing brine, The spray, and the tempest's roar." Chapter II. INCIDENTS AT SEA The Dolphin was what is termed, in nautical parlance, an "hermaphrodite brig," of about one hundred and fifty tons burden; and had been engaged, for some twelve or fifteen years, in the West India trade. This vessel could not with propriety be regarded as a model of grace and beauty, but gloried in bluff bows, a flat bottom, and a high quarter-deck; carried a large cargo for her tonnage, and moved heavily and reluctantly through the water. On this particular voyage, the hold of the brig, as I have already stated, was filled with lumber; and thirty-five thousand feet of the same article were carried on deck, together with an indefinite quantity of staves, shooks, hoop poles, and other articles of commerce too numerous to mention. On this enormous deck-load were constructed, on each side, a row of sheep-pens, sufficiently spacious to furnish with comfortable quarters some sixty or seventy sheep; and on the pens, ranged along in beautiful confusion, was an imposing display of hen-coops and turkey-coops, the interstices being ingeniously filled with bundles of hay and chunks of firewood. The quarter-deck was "lumbered up" with hogsheads of water, and casks of oats and barley, and hen-coops without number.