Presently a fishing-boat drew near, and I rushed to get a view of it; but it was a very ordinary looking boat, bobbing up and down, as any other boat would have done; yet, when I considered that the solitary man in it was actually a born native of the land in sight; that in all probability he had never been in America, and knew nothing about my friends at home, I began to think that he looked somewhat strange.
He was a very fluent fellow, and as soon as we were within hailing distance, cried out—“Ah, my fine sailors, from Ameriky, ain’t ye, my beautiful sailors?” And concluded by calling upon us to stop and heave a rope. Thinking he might have something important to communicate, the mate accordingly backed the main yard, and a rope being thrown, the stranger kept hauling in upon it, and coiling it down, crying, “pay out! pay out, my honeys; ah! but you’re noble fellows!” Till at last the mate asked him why he did not come alongside, adding, “Haven’t you enough rope yet?”
“Sure and I have,” replied the fisherman, “and it’s time for Pat to cut and run!” and so saying, his knife severed the rope, and with a Kilkenny grin, he sprang to his tiller, put his little craft before the wind, and bowled away from us, with some fifteen fathoms of our tow-line.
“And may the Old Boy hurry after you, and hang you in your stolen hemp, you Irish blackguard!” cried the mate, shaking his fist at the receding boat, after recovering from his first fit of amazement.
Here, then, was a beautiful introduction to the eastern hemisphere; fairly robbed before striking soundings. This trick upon experienced travelers certainly beat all I had ever heard about the wooden nutmegs and bass-wood pumpkin seeds of Connecticut. And I thought if there were any more Hibernians like our friend Pat, the Yankee peddlers might as well give it up.
The next land we saw was Wales. It was high noon, and a long line of purple mountains lay like banks of clouds against the east.
Could this be really Wales?—Wales?—and I thought of the Prince of Wales.
And did a real queen with a diadem reign over that very land I was looking at, with the identical eyes in my own head?—And then I thought of a grandfather of mine, who had fought against the ancestor of this queen at Bunker’s Hill.