But he immediately sought his berth, and continued his spirituous exercises, varied by attacks of _delirium tremens_, while alone and unaided except by the weary crew, I endeavoured to navigate the clumsy vessel down the Nova Scotian coast in mid-winter. To add to my troubles, the chronometer was hopelessly out of order, having been, I believe, tampered with by the mutinous second mate. How many hairbreadth escapes from destruction we had in that stormy passage of three weeks I have no space to tell in detail; but at last we obtained a pilot, who brought us safely into the harbour of St. John, New Brunswick, in a night of inky blackness and drenching rain, and there left us entangled amidst a motley crowd of coasters. Next day we were extricated and laid by a wharf, when, to my astonishment, my worthy commander appeared and went ashore, his first public appearance since coming on board in Cape Breton. That night, when the vessel had settled down upon the mud, by reason of the great fall of the tide, so that her tops were nearly level with the wharf-edge, the skipper returned and, avoiding the lighted gangway carefully placed for him, walked over the unprotected side of the wharf and fell fifty feet. He passed between the vessel's side and the piles of the wharf without touching, and entered the mud feet first with a force that buried him to his arm-pits. His cries aroused us, and we rescued him, actually unhurt, but nearly sober. Again he disappeared from our midst, having now a good excuse--shock to the system! Having discharged the cargo, and taken in ballast according to instructions from the consignee, I again danced attendance upon him at his hotel until he at last decided to make a move, and came on board attended by a most finished rascal of a longshoreman, who had apparently been his drinking crony all the time he had been ashore, and who was now, save the mark, coming with us to our next port to stow the cargo of lumber we were to take home. We towed across the Bay of Fundy to Parrsboro' in charge of a pilot, the skipper and his friend both shut in the skipper's state-room below, drinking. When we arrived, I was in serious difficulty as to a berth, because the master was so drunk I could get no instructions. But after a while I succeeded in finding a berth, where we lay quietly all night. In the morning early my skipper sent for a sleigh and again departed to an hotel, where he remained until the vessel was loaded. I frequently saw him in bed, and protested with all my power against the shameful way in which the quondam stevedore was stowing the cargo; but all my remonstrances were unheeded. At last the cargo was complete, including a deck-load six feet high, and the vessel was so unstable ("crank," as we call it) that she would hardly stand up at the wharf.