Chapter 27 - Page 2

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.

But, after all, the general effect of these mountains was mortifyingly
like the general effect of the Kaatskill Mountains on the Hudson River.

With a light breeze, we sailed on till next day, when we made Holyhead
and Anglesea. Then it fell almost calm, and what little wind we had, was
ahead; so we kept tacking to and fro, just gliding through the water,
and always hovering in sight of a snow-white tower in the distance,
which might have been a fort, or a light-house. I lost myself in
conjectures as to what sort of people might be tenanting that lonely
edifice, and whether they knew any thing about us.

The third day, with a good wind over the taffrail, we arrived so near
our destination, that we took a pilot at dusk.

He, and every thing connected with him were very different from our New
York pilot. In the first place, the pilot boat that brought him was a
plethoric looking sloop-rigged boat, with flat bows, that went wheezing
through the water; quite in contrast to the little gull of a schooner,
that bade us adieu off Sandy Hook. Aboard of her were ten or twelve
other pilots, fellows with shaggy brows, and muffled in shaggy coats,
who sat grouped together on deck like a fire-side of bears, wintering in
Aroostook. They must have had fine sociable times, though, together;
cruising about the Irish Sea in quest of Liverpool-bound vessels;
smoking cigars, drinking brandy-and-water, and spinning yarns; till at
last, one by one, they are all scattered on board of different ships,
and meet again by the side of a blazing sea-coal fire in some Liverpool
taproom, and prepare for another yachting.

Now, when this English pilot boarded us, I stared at him as if he had
been some wild animal just