Under the influence of favouring breezes and bright skies the Walrus¹ swept gaily² over the ocean at the beginning of her voyage, with “stuns’ls slow and aloft, royals and sky-scrapers,” according to Captain Stride. At least, if these were not the exact words he used, they express pretty well what he meant, namely, a “cloud of canvas.”

 

But this felicitous³ state of things did not last. The tropics were reached, where calms prevailed with roasting heat. The Southern Atlantic was gained, and gales⁴ were met with. The celebrated⁵ Cape⁶ was doubled, and the gales, if we may say so, were trebled. The Indian Ocean was crossed, and the China Seas were entered, where typhoons blew some of the sails to ribbons, and snapped off the topmasts like pipe-stems. Then she sailed into the great Pacific, and for a time the Walrus sported pleasantly among the coral islands.

 

During all this time, and amid all these changes, Charlie Brooke, true to his character, was the busiest and most active man on board. Not that his own special duties gave him much to do, for, until the vessel⁷ should reach port, these were rather light; but our hero—as Stride expressed it—“must always be doing.” If he had not work to do he made it—chiefly in the way of assisting other people. Indeed there was scarcely a man or boy on board who did not have the burden of his toil⁸, whatever it was, lightened in consequence of young Brooke’s tendency to put his powerful shoulder voluntarily to the wheel. He took the daily observations with the captain, and worked out the ship’s course during the previous twenty-four hours. He handled the adze and saw with the carpenter, learned to knot and

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