From St Helena we sailed towards Ascension, noted for its turtle. The island itself is a dull, brown spot lying in the sea, its cracked surface looking like a burnt egg-shell. This place was discovered by Jan de Noves, a Portuguese navigator, on Ascension Day, 1501--hence its name--at least so I was told by a whitey-brown native who boarded us. We had now arrived somewhat near the “horse” latitudes, and in calm weather, and with no work to kill the time, we began some horseplay with the monkeys on board. The name given to these latitudes arose from the number of horses the Spaniards used to throw overboard when becalmed--sometimes for weeks--in these regions, passing to and fro between their South American possessions and Europe. The chief object of our fun on board was a large, greenish, long-tailed monkey, who, with Darwinian forethought, had pitched upon young C---- as the fittest selection Providence had placed within his reach on the high seas. The competition as to natural fitness was so close between the two, that it was often a cause of serious dispute as to which should have his way. One day, after a sharp bout of this kind, a real quarrel ensued, as will occur sometimes in the best-regulated families; and young C----, who prided himself much on ancestral descent, as, no doubt, did also his still more anciently descended rival, came to a regular stand-up fight with the monkey. Strength was on the side of C----, whilst cunning and skill were on the side of the old un; but at last the upstart gave his ancient _confrère_ such a tremendous upper cut, as he was holding on to the ratlines, near the bulwark, that he was knocked out of time into the bosom of the impenetrable deep, and poor young Ben (that was the name of our monkey) had to swim for it. As this typical representative of lost nationality and universal brotherhood breasted the waves like a corker, we tried to lower a boat; but although the apparatus always acts at home, it never does at sea, so the boat stuck up in the air on its davits. We then threw a life-belt towards the now nearly exhausted Ben; but although he had enough instinct to grasp it, he had not enough sense to pass it over his head and under his arms. So we saw his efforts getting slowly weaker and weaker as he clasped and clutched at the slippery buoy, and at length he sank beneath the waves, down, down among the dead men, to be found again, no doubt, one day by some yet undreamt-of ethno-geologist, who will perhaps deduce from his bones that the aborigines of the Atlantic were very little men, with long caudal appendages, and descant learnedly upon every link in that long tail, until he comes to the end of his own, and finds out his mistake. In commemoration of this sad event we proposed a sort of Irish wake, to be held as we passed the line.