the chart; but no man rudely thrusts his
theory on another, or aspires to govern the
ideas of the rest in virtue of his superior
obstinacy in backing his own opinion. Did
I not assert a little while since that we were
a pure republic? And is not this yet another
and a striking proof of it!

In such pursuits and diversions as I have
endeavoured to describe, the time passes
quickly, happily, and adventurously, until we
ultimately succeed, at four in the morning on
the sixth day of our cruise, in discovering the
light of the Longship's Lighthouse, which we
know to be situated off the Land's End.
We are now only some seven-and-twenty
miles from the Scilly Islands, and the
discovery of the lighthouse enables us to set
our course by the compass cleverly enough.
The wind which has thus far always
remained against us, falls, on the afternoon of
this sixth day, to a dead calm, but springs
up again in another and a favourable quarter
at eleven o'clock at night. By daybreak we
are all on the watch for the Scilly Islands.
Not a sign of them. The sun rises; it is
a magnificent morning; the favourable
breeze still holds; we have been bowling along
before it since eleven the previous night;
and ought to have sighted the islands long
since. But we sight nothing: no land anywhere
all round the horizon. Where are we? Have
we overshot Scilly?—and is the next land we
are likely to see Ushant or Finisterre ?
Nobody knows. The faces of the Brothers Dobbs
darken; and they recal to each other how
they deprecated from the first this rash
venturing into unknown waters. We hail two
ships piteously, to ask our way. The two
ships can't tell us. We unroll the charts,
and differ in opinion over them more remarkably
than ever. The Dobbses grimly opine
that it is no use looking at charts, when we
have not got a pair of parallels to measure
by, and are all ignorant of the scientific parts
of navigation. Mr. Migott and I manfully
cheer the drooping spirits of the crew with
Guinness's stout, and put a smiling face upon
it. But in our innermost hearts, we think
of Columbus, and feel for him.

The last resource is to post a man at the
mast-head (if so lofty an expression may be
allowed in reference to so little a vessel as
the Tomtit), to keep a look-out. Up the
rigging swarms Dick the Bilious, in the
lowest spirits—strains his eyes over the
waters, and suddenly hails the gaping deck
with a joyous shout. The runaway islands
are caught at last—he sees them a-head of
us—he has no objection to make to the course
we are steering—nothing particular to say
but "Crack on!"—and nothing in the world
to do but slide down the rigging again.
Contentment beams once more on the faces
of Sam, Dick, and Bob. Mr. Migott and I
say nothing; but we look at each other with
a smile of triumph. We remember the
injurious doubts of the crew when the charts
were last unrolled, and think of Columbus
again, and feel for him more than ever.

Soon the islands are visible from the deck,
and by noon we have run in as near them as
we dare without local guidance. They are
low-lying, and picturesque in an artistic point
of view; but treacherous-looking and full of
peril to the wary nautical eye. Horrible
jagged rocks, and sinister swirlings and
foamings of the sea, seem to forbid the
approach to them. The Tomtit is hove to—our
ensign is run up half-mast high—and we fire
our double-barrelled gun fiercely for a pilot.
He arrives in a long, serviceable-looking boat,
with a wild, handsome, dark-haired son, and
a silent, solemn old man, for his crew. He
himself is lean, wrinkled, hungry-looking;
his eyes are restless with excitement, and his
tongue overwhelms us with a torrent of
words, spoken in a strange accent, but singularly
free from provincialisms and bad grammar.
He informs us that we must have been
set to the northward in the night by a
current, and goes on to acquaint us with so many
other things, with such a fidgetty sparkling
of the eyes and such a ceaseless patter of the
tongue, that he fairly drives me to the fore
part of the vessel out of his way. Smoothly
we glide along, parallel with the jagged rocks
and the swirling eddies, till we come to a
channel between two islands; and, sailing
through that, make for a sandy isthmus,
where we see some houses and a little
harbour. This is Hugh Town, the chief place in
St. Mary's, which is the largest island of the
Scilly group. We jump ashore in high glee,
feeling that we have succeeded in carrying
out the purpose of our voyage in defiance of
the prognostications of all our prudent friends.
How sweet is triumph, even in the smallest
things!

Bating the one fact of the wind having
blown from an unfavourable quarter, unvarying
good fortune had, thus far, accompanied
our cruise, and our luck did not desert us
when we got on shore at St. Mary's. We
went, happily for our own comfort, to the
hotel kept by the master of the sailing-packet
plying between Hugh Town and Penzance.
By our landlord and his pleasant, cordial wife
and family we were received with such kindness
and treated with such care, that we felt
really and truly at home before we had been
half an hour in the house. And, by way of
farther familiarising us with Scilly at first
sight, who should the resident medical man
turn out to be but a gentleman whom I knew.
These were certainly fortunate auspices under
which to begin our short sojourn in one of
the remotest and wildest places in the Queen's
dominions.

The islands seem, at a rough glance, to
form a great irregular circle, enclosing
a kind of lagoon of sea, communicating by
various channels with the main ocean all
around. The circumference of the largest of
the group is, as we heard, not more than