myself once more on my pony, quietly
winding through green paddy-fields and
under shady topes.

THE STORY OF A SAILOR'S LIFE.

CHAPTER THE THIRD.

Now, the second day that we lay off
Colla, being the 1st day of August, 1812, I
was ordered to go into the boat; and our
captain, doctor, and purser, went ashore to
go a-shooting. We landed the captain and
the rest of the officers on an island, about a
quarter of a mile from where our people
were at work; and our captain gave me
orders to land the provisions, and then come
back for them to take them on board to
dinner: and accordingly we went, and I
delivered what provisions I had to the officer
in charge of the working party; and telling
him the orders that I had received from the
captain, he sent me away to obey them; and
we tried to go back the same way we came,
but we could not, for the tide ran so strong
that we could not fetch round the island
where our captain was, so we tried to go
round the other way; but all our trying was
in vain, for the more we pulled, the further
we got away from the island; and having no
grabbling or anchor in the boat, we resolved
to go alongside of some of the small vessels
which were lying there, to hold on till the
tide was down, which we did; and the people
on board of them seemed to be glad to receive
us. Now, these vessels were fishing-vessels,
seemingly waiting for the tide to slack before
they could go to sea; and the one we got
on board of hailed another that lay pretty
close to us, but we could not understand a
single word they said, and we had no suspicion
that they were talking about us. So
we laid ourselves down quite unconcerned,
for the weather was warm, and we being
rather tired after our long pull; and we might
have laid down about two hours, for I could
not sleep sound, for I knew that our captain
would be very angry for not fetching him to
go on board to his dinner. But what was my
surprise, on getting up, to see two large boats,
with about twenty men in each, close to us.
And, coming alongside, they took us out of our
boat and tied us back to back, and beat us
unmercifully, and called us American spies,
for they took us and our ships to be
Americans; and they had such a spite against the
Americans for burning their ships, that they
would not hearken to anything that we had
to say if they could have understood us.

So, after they were tired of beating and
ill-using us, which they did in a cruel
manner, for they were a cowardly set of
men, for a coward is always cruel when
he gets the upper hand of you; so, after
they were tired beating of us, they took our
boat in tow and took us up to Colla, the
name of a small town in Russian Lapland;
and when we got there we were put into
prison, and they gave us some black bread to
eat and some water to drink, and the next
day they put irons on us, and joined two and
two together; we had a shackle round one of
our legs and another on our hands, and so we
were chained together; and then they sent a
serjeant and eight soldiers as a guard along
with us to march us to Archangel, which
was about one thousand two hundred miles
distant. And so we started on our travel in a
very helpless condition. Our first fortnight
travel was the worst, for we travelled through
nothing but woods; and when our stock of
black bread got low, they used to feed us
upon the bark of trees; for every fir-tree has
three different barks or rinds upon it, and
the middle rind, when roasted by the fire,
makes a good substitute for bread. But this
was not the worst misfortune we had to deal
with, for having irons on our legs and arms
we could not pull our clothes off.

And so we travelled on till we got clear of
the woods, and we got in amongst what they
called their towns; and here we got a good
deal better used, and our travelling was a
good deal better, for we used to get horses
from place to place; and they tied the two
horses' heads together, and when we were
mounted on them, chained together as we
were, our poor horses had to keep regular step
together, or else we were likely to be hauled
off our horses, which was very painful to our
legs. And sometimes we travelled in boats for
whole days together; and the nearer we got
to Archangel our food became a good deal
better, for they used, sometimes, to give us
some milk along with our bread in the room of
water; and in this way we kept on travelling till
the beginning of September, when we arrived
in Archangel, where we were put into prison.

We had been in Archangel prison two or
three days, when we found out by the few
words of Russian that we had picked up,
that we were going to be sent to Siberia
along with some more prisoners. And now
we thought our fate very hard to be
transported without having a trial; but it
happened otherwise. For one morning, when I
was out in the prison yard, I heard two
gentlemen talking together in German, and
me understanding a little of the German
tongue, I made bold to speak to one of them
as well as I could. I told him what we were,
and what ship we belonged to. Now this
gentleman that I spoke to, happened to be
one of the English Consul's clerks; and he
soon spoke to me in good English, and told
me that he would speak to the Consul about
us; and he was kind enough to put his hand
in his pocket and give me a silver ruble, and
away lie went. And I went to acquaint my
shipmates of the news that I had to tell them;
and you may depend they were very glad to
hear the news, especially when I showed
them the silver ruble that the gentleman
had been kind enough to give me. And I went
and bought something to eat witli part of the