Next morning, at daybreak, saw a frigate in the northeast quarter, making
signals;--soon after we bore up. Bay of Biscay--tremendous swell--Cape
Finisterre--blockading squadron off Cadiz--in--shore squadron--and so on,
all trifle and no plums.
At length the Kraaken, in which I had now served for some time, was
ordered home, and sick of knocking about in a fleet, I got appointed to a
fine eighteen--gun sloop, the Torch, in which we sailed on such a day for
the North Sea--wind foul--weather thick and squally; but towards evening
on the third day, being then off Harwich, it moderated, when we made more
sail, and stood on, and next morning, in the cold, miserable, drenching
haze of an October daybreak, we passed through a fleet of fishing--boats
at anchor. "At anchor," thought I, "and in the middle of the sea,"--but so
it was--all with their tiny cabooses, smoking cheerily, and a solitary
figure, as broad as it was long, stiffly walking to and fro on the
confined decks of the little vessels. It was now that I knew the value of
the saying, "a fisherman's walk, two steps and overboard." With regard to
these same fishermen, I cannot convey a better notion of them, than by
describing one of the two North Sea pilots whom we had on board. This
pilot was a tall, raw--boned subject, about six feet or so, with a blue
face--I could not call it red--and a hawk's--bill nose of the colour of
bronze. His head was defended from the weather by what is technically
called a south--west, pronounced sow--west,--cap, which is in shape like
the thatch of a dustman, composed of canvass, well tarred, with no snout,
but having a long flap hanging down the back to carry the rain over the
cape of the jacket.
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