“Why did not your crew rise in resistance to such cruelty?” is a question which has often been proposed to me, when relating these facts to my American friends. To talk of mutiny on shore is an easy matter; but to excite it on shipboard is to rush on to certain death. Let it be known that a man has dared to breathe the idea, and he is sure to swing at the yard-arm. Some of our men once saw six mutineers hanging at the yard-arm at once, in a ship whose crew exhibited the incipient beginnings of mutiny. Let mutiny be successful, the government will employ its whole force, if needful, in hunting down the mutineers; their blood, to the last drop, is the terrible retribution it demands for this offence. That demand is sure to be met, as was the case with the crew of the _Hermione_[5] frigate, and with the crew of the ill-fated _Bounty_, whose history is imprinted on the memory of the whole civilized world. With such tragedies flitting before our eyes, who need ask why we did not resist? Just before we left Lisbon for another cruise, my position was once more changed by my appointment to the post of servant to the sailing-master; whose boy, for some offence or other, was flogged and turned away. Here, too, the captain procured a fine band, composed of Frenchmen, Italians and Germans, taken by the Portuguese from a French vessel. These musicians consented to serve, on condition of being excused from fighting, and on a pledge of exemption from being flogged. They used to play to the captain during his dinner hour; the party to be amused usually consisting of the captain and one or two invited guests from the ward-room; except on Sundays, when he chose to honor the ward-room with his august presence. The band then played for the ward-room. They also played on deck whenever we entered or left a port. On the whole, their presence was an advantage to the crew, since their spirit-stirring strains served to spread an occasional cheerful influence over them. Soon after they came on board, we had orders to proceed to sea again on another cruise. [Illustration: (Decorative Separator)] CHAPTER IV