If the disposing, in the service, of even a ship-load of assistant-surgeons, is considered a matter of small moment, my disposal, after reaching the Cape of Good Hope, needs but small comment. I was very soon appointed to take charge of a gunboat, in lieu of a gentleman who was sent to the Naval Hospital of Simon's Town, to fill a death vacancy--for the navy as well as nature abhors a vacuum. I had seen the bright side of the service, I was now to have my turn of the dark; I had enjoyed life on board a crack frigate, I was now to rough it in a gunboat. The east coast of Africa was to be our cruising ground, and our ship a pigmy steamer, with plenty fore-and-aft about her, but nothing else; in fact, she was Euclid's definition of a line to a t, length without breadth, and small enough to have done "excellently well" as a Gravesend tug-boat. Her teeth were five: namely, one gigantic cannon, a 65-pounder, as front tooth; on each side a brass howitzer; and flanking these, two canine tusks in shape of a couple of 12-pounder Armstrongs. With this armament we were to lord it with a high hand over the Indian Ocean; carry fire and sword, or, failing sword, the cutlass, into the very heart of slavery's dominions; the Arabs should tremble at the roar of our guns and the thunder of our bursting shells, while the slaves should clank their chains in joyful anticipation of our coming; and best of all, we--the officers--should fill our pockets with prize-money to spend when we again reached the shores of merry England. Unfortunately, this last premeditation was the only one which sustained disappointment, for, our little craft being tender to the flag-ship of the station, all our hard-earned prize-money had to be equally shared with her officers and crew, which reduced the shares to fewer pence each than they otherwise would have been pounds, and which was a burning shame.