attempts to the pens of novelists and travellers. It was near nightfall when we made the Rock of Gibraltar; and as we passed through the Straits when I was snug below in my hammock, my journal contains no description of that wonderful fortress. When the morning dawned, the high mountains of Spain were just visible in the horizon; and the next land we sighted was the coast of Barbary, somewhere to the westward of Tunis. Six days after that we were in sight of Sicily, when, after hauling off the coast, a gale sprung up, and such thick and cloudy weather came on, that we could take no observations. The ship was therefore hove-to; and while sail was being taken off her I got an ugly fall, which laid me up in my hammock for several days. During my illness, Dicky Sharpe was constantly with me, whenever he was off duty, and we became greater friends than ever. "Do you know, D'Arcy, I am really very much obliged to you for having got me so well out of that scrape with the boatswain and the beef-bone!" he said to me in a tone of confidence one day, after we had reached Valetta harbour. "I have not ventured to ask Mr Du Pre leave to go on shore. Do you think he would give it me?" "I rather think not, Dicky," said I. "Don't say a word about it for some time to come, and then you can begin to look dull and melancholy, and to pine for the shore; and perhaps his heart will soften with compassion, and he will give you leave." "Capital advice! Won't I look melancholy, that's all, when the time comes?" he exclaimed. "How soon ought I to begin?" "Not till I'm well and can go on shore to look after you," I answered.