I was welcomed by my new shipmates in the fore-peak with many rough but no unkind jokes; and as I had many stories to tell of my adventures in the backwoods, before we turned in for the night I had made myself quite at home with them. At daybreak on the next morning all hands were roused out to weigh anchor. The second mate's rough voice had scarcely done sounding in my ear before I was on deck, and with the rest was running round between the capstan-bars. "Loose the topsails," next sung out the captain. I sprung aloft to aid in executing the order. Though a young seaman may not have knowledge, he may at all events exhibit activity in obeying orders, and thus gain his superior's approbation. The anchor was quickly run up to the bows, the topsails were sheeted home, and, with a light breeze from the northward, we stood towards the mouth of the Mississippi. As we passed close to the spot where, on the previous day, the _Foam_ lay at anchor, I looked for her. She was nowhere to be seen. She must have got under weigh and put to sea at night. "She's gone, Peter, you observe," remarked Captain Searle, as some piece of duty called me near him. "I'm glad you are not on board her; and I hope neither you nor I may ever fall in with her again." From New Orleans to Belize, at the mouth of the Mississippi, is about one hundred miles; and this distance, with the aid of the current and a favourable breeze, we accomplished by dusk, when we prepared once more to breast old ocean's waves. These last hundred miles of the father of rivers were very uninteresting, the banks being low, swampy, and dismal in the extreme, pregnant with ague and fevers. Although I rejoiced to be on the free ocean, I yet could scarcely help feeling regret at leaving, probably for ever, the noble stream on whose bosom I had so long floated; on whose swelling and forest-shaded banks I had travelled so far; whom I had seen in its infancy--if an infant it may ever be considered--in its proud manhood, and now at the termination of its mighty course. These thoughts quickly vanished, however, as I felt the lively vessel lift to the swelling wave, and smelt the salt pure breeze from off the sea. Though the sea-breeze was very reviving after the hot pestilential air of New Orleans, yet as it came directly in our teeth, our captain wished it from some other quarter. We were enabled, however, to work off the shore; and as during the night the land-breeze came pretty strong, by day-break the next morning we were fairly at sea.