After a short stay at the Balize, we put to sea once more, for the purpose, as it was understood, of touching at Havana, and then returning to New York. This was a cheerful voyage; the idea of a speedy return to America, spread a feeling of exquisite delight over the whole crew, and converted the performance of our duty into a pleasure. One effect was, to set those hands, who were gifted with the talent, so highly prized in a man of war, of “spinning yarns,” busily at work during every spare moment, when a group could be gathered to listen. Foremost among these intellectual time-killers was Richard Dickinson, a messmate of mine, a good-natured Englishman. He called himself the son of Old Dick, by which epithet he was usually called. Dick’s powers were now in great demand, and he exercised them to our universal satisfaction, but with how great regard for truth I cannot determine. It is probable, however, that truth entered very little into Dick’s productions. He was a sort of off-hand novelist; all he cared for was _effect_, and where truth failed him, fiction generously loaned her services. So bewitching were Dick’s stories, that I used to long for the hour when we could lay in our hammocks and listen. My first salutation, when we lay for the last time in the port of Havana, was, “Come, Dick, tell us a yarn.” “What is the use? you will go to sleep,” he used to reply. “No I won’t, Dick; I can listen to your yarns all night,” was my usual answer. Dick would then begin some yarn, which, if not so interesting as the thousand-and-one stories in the Arabian Nights’ entertainments, was at least as true to nature, and, in respect to its humor, might be compared to some of the sayings of that illustrious personage, Sancho Panza, the renowned squire of the immortal Don Quixote; but, in spite of my promises, I usually gave notice of my condition after a short time, by performing a concord of nasal sounds, vulgarly called snoring, which would set Dick to swearing, and often put an end to his performances for the night. I need scarcely say, that these “yarns” were by no means favorable in their moral effects on the listener. They generally consisted in fictitious adventures on the sea and on the shore, plentifully interlarded in their recital with profane oaths and licentious allusions. When seamen become elevated, and are properly instructed, these filthy stories will be superseded by reading good and useful literature, with an abundance of which every ship should be supplied by the benevolence of the Christian public.