TRICKS UPON TRAVELLERS.

EVERY man thinks his own geese swans-his own shad salmonand his own real estate the true land of Cockaigne. Every man, likewise, thinks himself distinguished above all others for having encountered marvellous adventures in the course of his earthly pilgrimage; he is, in his own imagination, not only the greatest adventurer, but the greatest sufferer among mortals-the mighty Atlas, whose broad shoulders are destined to sustain the great firmament of evil that overshadows the wide universe. For a verification of this fact, good reader, turn to any one of your neighbours and set him talking about himself-by no means a difficult task in any case-and you will discover that he has been a Job in tribulation as well as patience. Even honest Dogberry was a man who had " had losses ;" and I have known an alderman complain that his weary soul was full of care, as if he were the scape-goat for the sins of the whole corporation.

Such being the fact, it may be held pardonable in me to pretend to have seen service myself. There was a day when I thought, with most of the gentry alluded to above, that I was a very odd fellow-that nobody had plagues and vexations like me; but those were days of green experience, when I used to dream, as simple ones will, in spite of their greybeard teachers, of human perfectibility-of the perpetual motion-of disinterested friendship-of squaring the circle-of making my fortune, and I know not what other extravagant nonentities. I now begin to philosophize, and doubt whether I ought to consider my own destiny as marked by any very strange anomalies. In short, honest reader, I have had adventures as well as you; but mine, perhaps, may not cast yours into the shade; and my excuse for this prefatory prosing is, that if you find my geese are not swans, you may perceive that it was by following a very common example I made the mistake of thinking them so.

They are all true," said Corporal Trim, in allusion to the stories he had in store for Uncle Toby," for they are all about myself." I can offer the same satisfactory proof of the truth of mine, except in the case of one or two, respecting which I can affirm, with Sancho Panza, they are so indubitable, that a body may not only believe, but swear to the truth of them. Reader, I have been a traveller; but whether travelling or at rest, I have suffered the common lot of mortality in having tricks played me. Listen to my narrative; you will be quite as well employed as in picking straws. My first shall be

A SAILOR'S TRICK.

It was towards the end of December that we put to sea from Boston, in America, bound to Europe. The northern coast of the United States is proverbially tempestuous in winter, and we found the season of our voyage no exception to the general rule. Scarcely had we lost sight of the land, when a furious gale of wind sprung up, that continued with little intermission for fourteen days. Tremendous squalls drove us at times nine and ten knots an hour; showers of rain, sleet, and snow, poured upon us in rapid succession. Day and night we were pitching over the mountainous billows, the vessel rolling from side to side, as if each moment about to upset, or plunging her bows into the front of a

mighty wave, as if to precipitate herself headlong into the depths. She was as deeply laden as she could swim; and it strikes one with astonishment, on observing such a heavy mass labouring over the restless waters, and exposed to all the fury of the elements, how bits of wood can hold together in this agitation.

At night, 'tis as good as an electric shock, after you have been tossed from side to side in your berth, till every bone in your mortal frame is most desperately sore. For the first night or two, indeed, you might as well attempt to sleep within a tread-mill; but when you have become a little used to the bouncings and jouncings that greet your first attempts to go to sleep, and your senses are just beginning to steep themselves in forgetfulness, it has all the rousing effect of an electric shock to be awakened by the shipping of a sca. Bang! comes a most tremendous thump over your head, that starts you up in the twinkling of an eye, with the horrid imagination that the ship has struck upon a rock. The next instant ten hogsheads of water come rushing down the cabin doors. The captain scrambles upon deck, swearing at the booby of a fellow at the helm, whose awkwardness led to the accident. The mate bustles about, and makes up in noise what he lacks in knowledge; the sailors grumble, the pigs squeal, the fowls cackle, and all above and below are in a sweet condition.

At dinner 'tis an exhibition of legerdemain. The plates, spoons, and bottles spin about upon the table as nimbly as the apparatus of a conjuror when he cries Presto! Try to swallow anything, and you are baulked in a style that Tantalus in limbo never saw surpassed. Seize your fork, and make a lunge at the morsel on your plate; ten to one that you hit the edge of your neighbour's dish, if you do not indeed serve him a more clumsy trick by nailing his hand to the table, which he is holding on in anticipation of a desperate roll, which he feels coming. Attempt to drink, and the contents of the glass go somewhere between your chin and your elbow. Though you cannot help yourself to victuals, you commonly get a portion of what belongs to your neighbour-his glass dancing into your face, and his dish upsetting into your lap. Mind how you sit, or a lee-lurch will jerk you from the seat, and send you skating super-diagonally, till you bring up slap against the wall. Look sharp at all times, and bite sharp when you can. Such are the comforts of a dinner at sea.

However, stormy weather does not last for ever. After crossing the warm and smoking current of the Gulf-stream, the tempests abated. I had little apprehension during their continuance, as I knew the vessel to be well built and nearly new, and I had full faith in the skill and experience of the captain and crew. For all this, I had been served a trick.

1

The lone ocean! what a solitude! We were in the great track of navigation across the Atlantic, yet, after leaving the American coast, not a sail caught our eye till we had passed the Azores; nothing but the salt, vast, dread, eternal deep. Now and then a solitary gull, or shearwater, or petrel might be seen skimming over the waves; or a shoal of porpoises or black-fish, cutting through the water, offered a momentary spectacle; or, more rarely, a Portuguese man-of-war-not a ship, but a shell-fish. I was leaning over the ship's rail, one serene sunny day, watching the navigation of this little craft with its beautiful bluish-green

hull and white striped sail, scudding gracefully forward under a gentle breeze. Suddenly it struck sail, and sunk out of sight.

"Gone to Davy's locker!" exclaimed the mate, who had been scanning the phenomenon as well as I," and now look out for squalls." Aye, but we have already weathered too many of them to be

replied I.

hensive on that score,'
Aye, to be sure!" answered Bill.

"So tight a ship as we have got under us, you know."

appre

Tight-O! hem!" said Bill, with a roll of his eye, and thrusting a huge quid into his cheek, "Oh, aye! tight! yes! ha, ha!"

There was something in the fellow's look at these words that I did not comprehend. "Aye! tight and sound, why not?" returned I, casting my eye along the ship's side.

Bill looked more significantly than ever, and I could perceive that he watched my eyes very sharply. As my glances wandered fore and aft, I thought something looked oddly near the main chains. I stared hard at it, while Bill was twisting up the muscles of his face, as if he knew something more than ordinary.

"What is that bit of board clumsily stuck on the ship's side there?" asked I.

"A little bit of gingerbread-work," answered he, with an arch leer. "Gingerbread-work, hey? let us nibble a bit at it," returned I, beginning to suspect something. So getting over the side, I clambered down to the spot, and set to knocking and scratching about it.

"Avast! avast!" cried Bill, in some agitation, "you will have it off." "What, then, is there anything underneath?"

"Nothing but a hole through the ship's side, about as big as your head."

"A hole through the ship's side?"

"Aye!" replied he, with great gravity.

"And how long has it been there ?"

"All the voyage."

"Come now, Bill, you are buttering me down. Tell me the truth." ""Tis true as the moral law; but say nothing about it-the other passengers might be sort o' scared, you see."

"Aye, if they believed it; but "

"I'll tell you just how it happened; the whole affair to an affigraphy. You see we lay at the wharf in Boston, all loaded."

" Well!"

"Well, trying to haul off into the stream, the ship grounded just at night, and when the tide left her, she took a heel against the wharf, and the end of one of the fenders coming in a sort o' clumsy way against her broadside, smashed it right through."

"And you put to sea upon it ?"

"Exactly so: first nailing a bit of pine board over the place, and giving it a daub of black varnish; 'twas all done in ten minutes after we found it out in the morning. 'Twould have taken time, you know, to unload and repair."

"Gracious powers! Have we come through all these gales of wind with a leak of two square feet ready to burst upon us?"

"Ha, ha!" said Bill, hitching up his waistband, " many is the time I've chuckled in my sleeve to hear you bragging to the old man how

tight a ship you had got-'tis just above the water-line, though-no danger. Yet, when the sea ran high, I used to put my head down the after-hatchway, and hear the water pouring in-it made me feel kind o' streaked."

"Streaked! by the powers! you deserve to be streaked and striped too, for serving a man such a trick.”

Oh, for the matter of that, it is all as good as a sermon; there's a moral law and an inference to everything.'

"And what moral do you make of all this, Mr. Parson ?"

Why," replied Bill, with an air of the greatest mock-gravity, "such is the lot and luck of all mortal mankind. Many a chap carries sail, without knowing what a crazy craft he is floating in."

"Truly, Bill, you have spoken like a Professor, for a good moral might be handsomely picked out of the affair. But have a care for the future; and the next time you undertake to preach me a sermon at sea, don't give my ship a punch through the ribs by way of a text."

A YANKEE TRICK.

It was a time of great bustle and expectation in the little village of L-, situated "somewhere out of the world and up in the woods," in the state of Massachusetts. There was to be a special frolic in the shape of a horse-race-a horse-race, do I say? I mean a scramble of quadrupeds, for since the practice had been known there, very few of the animals that put their hoofs in would have been entitled to the name and honours of a horse at Doncaster. Four-footed animals they were for the most part, though some of them kept the fourth in reserve, and chose to go upon three- Narraganset pacers, Vermont shamblers, Berkshire blunderers, Connecticut caperers, Worcester plough-joggers, Dogtown dumpies,-in short, the tag-rag and bob-tail of the four-footed creation; not that Yankee-land is deficient in prime horse-flesh, witness the Tom Thumb the Great, or the steeds of the mail stages, if you have been in that country; or the progeny of that celebrated mare whom a flash of lightning chased all round a ten-acre lot, without being able to catch her. But horse-racing is no regular trade or common occupation in New England; nobody makes a business of rearing animals for the turf; and when an occurrence of this sort takes place, it is no very studied affair, but a frolicsome scramble among all the beasts of burden in the neighbourhood, or such as chance brings along at the moment.

On

Once a year it had been customary to run a race of this sort in the village of L —, and the fleetest runner of this motley multitude won a prize of some value, to which every adventurer contributed a sum. the present occasion the prize was considerably augmented by an offer from an individual who had constituted himself a society for the promotion of horse-racing, and more than common interest was of course excited at the approach of the festival. The old farmers who had horses fit for running, gave them extra quantities of corn and fewer applications of the lash, as if to be fat and fleet were the same thing. Some, however, were more cautious in their preparations, and, among the rest, Job Hawker, a sly, calculating, guessing, questioning, bargaining, swapping, Jack-of-all-trades sort of a chap, long-sided and limber-tongued, with a face as grave as a deacon, but a roguish twinkle of the eye on occasion, that gave you assurance he was no greenhorn. Job's horse had beaten

them all hollow the former year, and he was in full confidence of the same good fortune this time. Howbeit, he took all imaginable precautions to secure success, and put his steed only to that quantum of exercise and fodder which he judged conducive to speed.

But while he was flattering himself with the prospect of a certain victory, and as the day of trial approached, he was thrown into consternation by the arrival of a stranger, mounted on a Canadian pony, who came with the avowed intention of putting in for the prize. At the first announcement of this intelligence, Job fell into despair, for it so happened that he knew the individual, having encountered him in the northern part of Vermont, while on a trading excursion in that quarter. Job had witnessed a trial of speed which the pony exhibited there, and knew that his own Bucephalus was no match for him. It was plain that if the Canadian took a share in the race, he must win, and the catastrophe seemed inevitable, for nobody had a right to exclude him. It was a grievous thing for Job to think of having the prize snatched from before his eyes, when it had been augmented to a double value, and just at the moment when he imagined it within his grasp. Job had not all the patience of his namesake of old, as evinced by his conduct in this emergency. He did not sit down and curse the day he was born, giving up the whole concern for a bad bargain, but he sat down upon a log of wood and scratched his head. This sage manoeuvre was practised for the purpose of devising by what art, stratagem, cunning device, or quizzical circumvention, he might get rid of this formidable rival. His first thought was to inveigle him into a swap, but that would require a great deal of palavering and chaffering, and must prove a long job--too long for what little time remained. He then thought of buying him off from the enterprise, giving him a bird in the hand for two in the bush; but this would cost too much, and Job was resolved to have the whole or none. His third project was to frighten or obstruct the pony by some preconcerted accident, just at the time of setting out; but this did not appear, on consideration, to be a safe proceeding. Various other tricks suggested themselves, but no one seemed to be just the thing. Evening drew on-the next morning was to bring all parties upon the turf-and there was not a moment to be lost. Job had cudgelled his brain for two hours to no purpose; he started up in a great puzzle, and began to wend his way homeward. As he reached the little green in front of the meeting-house, he heard a loud huzzaing; he looked up and beheld a crowd of people following a fat ox, with a flag upon his horns. At this instant a thought struck him; he did not shout Eureka, but it was because he knew no Greek. Early the next morning, on that hint he acted. He clapped his military hat upon his head, (Job was a Lieutenant,) and waited upon the Canadian.

"Well, I suppose, Squire, you are the gentleman with the pony?" "Yes, Sir."

"Ah, I guessed as much. Well, I suppose you are a thinkin' o' racin' to-day?

"Yes, if it is according to rule."

"Sartin! It's all accordin' to rule, if in case you have tried to beat the beater."

"Beat the beater!"

"Yes, beat the beater; you know what that is, I take it.”