Before proceeding further with ship-board scenes, a slight sketch of a few of the _dramatis personæ_ may not be unacceptable. And first, our commander, the autocrat of this little empire. Captain McGuffin was a raw-boned Caledonian, of some six foot three; a huge, red-headed man of great physical powers, of which, however, his whole demeanour, singularly mild, evinced a pleasing unconsciousness; bating the latter quality, he was just such a man of nerves and sinews as in the olden time, at Falkirk or Bannockburn, one could fancy standing like a tower of strength, amidst the din and clash of arms, “slaughing” off heads and arms, muckle broad-sword in hand, with fearful energy and effect. He had a sombre and fanatical expression of visage; and I never looked at his “rueful countenance” but I thought I saw the genuine descendant of one of those stern covenanters of yore, of whom I had read—one of those “crop-eared whigs” who, on lonely moor and mountain, had struggled for the rights of conscience, and fought with indomitable obstinacy the glorious fight of freedom. I soon discovered I was not “alone in my glory,” and that another cadet was destined to share with me the honours of the “Griffinage.” He was a gawky, wide-mouthed fellow, with locks like a pound of candles, and trousers half-way up his calves; one who, from his appearance, it was fair to infer had never before been ten miles from his native village. It was a standing source of wonder to all on board (and to my knowledge the enigma was never satisfactorily solved), by what strange concurrence of circumstances, what odd twist of Dame Fortune’s wheel, this Gaspar Hauserish specimen of rusticity had attained to the distinguished honour of being allowed to sign himself “gentleman cadet,” in any “warrant, bill, or quittance;” but so it was. The old adage, however, applied in his case; he turned out eventually to be much less of a fool than he looked.