Variety is charming. No one laying claim to the smallest amount of that very uncommon attribute, common-sense, will venture to question the truth of that statement. Variety is so charming that men and women, boys and girls, are always, all of them, hunting after it. To speak still more emphatically on this subject, we venture to affirm that it is an absolute necessity of animal nature. Were any positive and short-sighted individual to deny this position, and sit down during the remainder of his life in a chair and look straight before him, in order to prove that he could live without variety, he would seek it in change of position. If he did not do that, he would seek it in change of thought. If he did not do that, he would die!

 

Fully appreciating this great principle of our nature, and desiring to be charmed with a little variety, Tim Rokens and Phil Briant presented themselves before Captain Dunning one morning about a week after the storm, and asked leave to go ashore. The reader may at first think the men were mad, but he will change his opinion when we tell him that four days after the storm in question the Red Eric had anchored in the harbour formed by the mouth of one of the rivers on the African coast, where white men trade with the natives for bar-wood and ivory, and where they also carry on that horrible traffic in negroes, the existence of which is a foul disgrace to humanity.

 

“Go ashore!” echoed Captain Dunning. “Why, if you all go on at this rate, we’ll never get ready for sea. However, you may go, but don’t wander too far into the interior, and look out for elephants and wild men o’ the woods, boys—keep about the settlements.”

 

“Ay, ay, sir, and thank’ee,” replied the two men, touching their caps as they retired.

 

“Please, sir, I want to go too,” said Glynn Proctor, approaching the captain.

 

“What! more wanting to go ashore?”

 

“Yes, and so do I,” cried Ailie, running forward and clasping her father’s rough hand; “I did enjoy myself so much yesterday, that I must go on shore again to-day, and I must go with Glynn. He’ll take such famous care of me; now won’t you let me go, papa?”

 

“Upon my word, this looks like preconcerted mutiny. However, I don’t mind if I do let you go, but have a care, Glynn, that you don’t lose sight of her for a moment, and keep to the shore and the settlements. I’ve no notion of allowing her to be swallowed by an alligator, or trampled on by an elephant, or run away with by a gorilla.”

 

“Never fear, sir. You may trust me; I’ll take good care of her.”

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