By a modification of my albatross line, I managed to capture several of them; a proceeding, however, which had to be conducted with great secrecy; as, had the sailors got wind of it, and a storm followed by coincidence, I should probably have figured as the hero in a repetition of Jonah’s history—minus the “great fish”; and I am by no means sure whether even that important detail would have been wanting. About this time we fell in with an emigrant ship; signals were exchanged under Marriott’s Code, and it was intimated that the presence of our captain was wanted on board. Both ships accordingly hove to; and in a weak moment of impulse I sought permission to occupy a place in the captain’s gig. The request was readily acceded to, and, if confession be at all desirable, I am quite prepared to confess to a slight degree of nervousness, as the small craft rose and fell in the most frolicsome manner, as if indeed she were glad to feel herself once more in the water. All sorts of horrible fancies coursed through my mind: what if the wind suddenly shifted, causing those flapping sails to belly out and carry both the ships farther away! We were hundreds of miles from land, and we had not so much as a biscuit or a drop of fresh water in the gig. Then I reviewed mentally all the terrible stages—casting lots, glaring at each other, &c., &c., and—we were alongside. The captain disappeared below, but I of course stayed on deck talking to the emigrants. How brave and sanguine they were; how little they seemed to heed the dreary prospect of a far-off country full of privations, where all would be up-hill work for many a long year. They saw Hope pointing to the bright to-morrow, to fields ripe with golden corn, the fruit of their labour, and homesteads made glad with the merry laughter of children. I wonder how many realized the vision! They crowded on deck, and their “Cheer, boys, cheer,” gradually waxed fainter and fainter as we neared our own ship. When standing once more amongst my fellow-passengers, who plied me with all manner of questions, my thoughts reverted to those brave emigrants, and I dwelt with almost selfish complacency on the great difference between their prospects and our own. Most of us were going out in the employ of a Company that reputedly paid its servants handsomely, and treated them kindly; we were to be enrolled as units in an administration never equalled in the world’s history: where all grades performed their duty _con amore_, and where officers were happy and contented, knit together by ties of brotherhood.