I give this as an instance of our method of killing that dreary time. The old ladies for the most part kept their cabins; but the girls came into the cuddy as usual, and made the interior comfortable to the eye as they sat here and there with knitting-needles in their hands or a book upon their knees. On one of these foul-weather afternoons, hearing a strange noise of singing, I entered the cuddy, and found Peter Hemskirk standing with his face to the company and his back upon one of the Miss Joliffes, who was accompanying him at the piano. He was singing a fashionable sentimental song of that day, ‘I’d be a Butterfly, born in a Bower.’ The posture of the man was exquisitely absurd as he stood with his immensely fat figure swaying to the movements of the ship, a ridiculous smile upon his face, whilst he held his arms extended, singing first to one and then to another, so that every one might share in the song. The picture of this great corpulent man, with an overflow of chins between his shirt collars, and a vast surface of green waistcoat arching out like the round of a full topsail, and then curving in again to a pair of legs of the exact resemblance of a pegtop--standing as he was with his feet close together--I say, the sight of this immense man singing ‘I’d be a Booterfly’ in falsetto, proved too much for the company. They listened a little with sober faces; but at last Miss Hudson gave way, and bent her head behind her mother and lay shaking in an hysterical fit of laughter; then another girl laughed out; then followed a general chorus of merriment. But the undaunted Dutchman persevered. He would not let us off a single syllable, but worked his way without the least alteration of posture right through the song, making us a low bow when he had come to an end; whilst Miss Joliffe, darting from the piano stool, fled through the saloon and disappeared down the hatchway with a face as red as a powder-flag.