Of course, my situation was as unpleasant as that of any other person on board. I could not witness the discomfort and ill-usage of others, without trembling for my own back. I, too, had thoughts of running away, as opportunities frequently offered themselves. But, being ignorant of the Portuguese language, I wisely concluded that my condition among them, if I got clear, would, in respect to my present state, bear about the same analogy as the fire does to the frying-pan. My little adventures on shore gave me full assurance of this fact. I remember going ashore on Good Friday. Like good Catholics, the Portuguese had the masts of their vessels crossed, with effigies of the traitor Judas hanging very significantly at their jib-booms. On shore, they were exhibiting the blasphemous mimicry of the solemn scene of the crucifixion. One was bearing the cross, another a sponge, a third the vinegar. The streets were crowded with images of the saints, to which all reverently bowed. Woe betide that sacrilegious wretch who refused this tribute to their darling images. He _was_ sure of being knocked down; he was _not_ sure of getting home alive. I was fain to yield my knees to save my skull; so for the time I was as good a Catholic as any of them, at least in the matter of bowing and crossing: it was done, however, with true Protestant mental reservation, and with a sincere determination to prefer my man-of-war’s life to a life in Portugal. On another occasion, some of our officers took me on shore to help them attend to some purchases. After following them a considerable distance, they gave me a small commission to execute, with directions to return to the ship as soon as it was attended to. This was no easy task, however: they had conducted me to a strange part of the city, and I knew scarcely a word of Portuguese. There I stood, then, surrounded only by foreigners, who neither understood my language nor I theirs. All I knew of my destination was, that our boat lay near the Fish-market; so, for Fish-market I inquired. Speaking in English, I asked the first man I met to direct me. He looked at me with the empty stare of an idiot, and passed on. To the next, I said, partly in broken Portuguese and partly in my own tongue, “John,” (they call everybody John, whose true name they do not know,) “do show me the fish-market.” He could not understand me; so, shrugging his shoulders, he said, “No entender Englis,” and passed on. I asked several others, but invariably received a shrug of the shoulder, a shake of the head, and a “no entender Englis,” for an answer. I grew desperate, and began to feel as if I had lost myself, when, to my unutterable satisfaction, I saw an English soldier. I ran up to him and said, “Good luck to you; do tell me where the fish-market is, for these stupid Portuguese, bad luck to them, can’t understand a word I say; but it is all, no entender Englis.” My countryman laughed at seeing my English temper ruffled, and placed me in the way of