“I hired out to Captain Williams agin, as steward, for thirty-one dollars a month; and we weighed anchor for St. Domingo; and we took a load of goods from there and started for the Rock of Gibralter once more. On our passage, we was overhauled by an equinoctial storm, and we had a distressed bad time, and it did seem that we must go to the bottom for days. We fell in with a fleet of thirty-seven sail from the West Indies, under the convoy of two English frigates, for London. You see these ships was merchantmen, and the English Admiral had sent out two frigates to protect ’em; for England and France was at war, and they’d seize each other’s commerce, and their governments had to protect ’em. When we got in hailin’ distance of the frigates, captain cries out, ‘how long do you think the storm will last?’ ‘Can’t say—all looks bad now; two of our vessels have gone to pieces, and every soul lost.’ And while we was talkin’ the seas broke over us like rollin’ mountains; we couldn’t lay into the wind at all, and we had to let her fly, and we went like a streak of greased lightnin’, and we soon lost sight on ’em; and I tell you ’twas a melancholy sight to see _sich a fleet_ strugglin’ _with sich a tempest_; but we had all we could attend to at home, without borryin’ trouble from abroad. But we finally conquered the storm, and dropped anchor under the old fort agin. We lay in the basin two days, and then got liberty from the governor to go up the straits, and we calculated to run up to Egypt, and we cleared the straits and went into the Mediterranean; and then we was on what our college-larnt fellers calls classic ground.
“One day the captain calls me on deck and says, ‘Nig, do you see that city up the coast?’
“‘Well, that’s the spot you sing so much about; now let’s have it; strike up, Nig.’
“‘To Carthagena we was bound, With a sweet and lively gale,’ &c.
“And I was glad enough to see my old port I’d celebrated so long in my songs. Well, we sailed along and had the finest time ever one set of fellers had—the air was as soft as you please, and the islands was as thick as huckle-berries, and of all kinds and sizes. We sailed on by one island, and then by another, and bim’by Mount Etna hove in sight, while we was a hangin’ off the coast of Sicily, and ’twas rocky, and we couldn’t hug the shore very close; but we had a fine sight of the volcano; and there was a steady stream of fire and smoke come out of the top of the mountain, and in the night it was a big sight. It flung a kind of a flickerin’ light over the sea, and we stayed in sight of it some time; and disposed of our load pretty much, and got back to the fort in just eighteen days. We cleared the old Rock the next arternoon; and I said ‘good night,’ to the old fort, and I hain’t seen her from that day to this.