THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF CHRISTOPHER CONGETON.

Otago Witness, Issue 568, 18 October 1862, Page 6

THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF CHRISTOPHER CONGETON.

CHAPTER XXV.

A LIFE ON THM OCEAN WAVE. The la^t few chapters of my life, beiii^ comparatively -without incident, have necessarily been somewhat^ dull. But lam approaching now to more stirring events and more stirring times, and the blood of my readers, mayhap, ■will flow less slavishly as they follow me through scenes with which the majority of them are familiar. Behold me now on board The Rasper, which is slill lying in dock, and advertised positive^ and imperatively to start at daylight to-morrow morning. But we have grown to loot upon such notices as delusions and snares, and are miserably convinced in our own minds that, by nothing short of a fortunate acciden t, will such a consummation be effected. B jhold mo, with Katty John, and Samuel, sitting and standing on our luggage, with sich a chaos around us, with such a babel of voices ringing in our ears, "with such screaming, tearing, fighting, yelling, and crying, above, below, and from every point in the compass, that my wits are clean gone, and do not return for many day.? and weeks. But a few scattered incidents remain impressed upon my memory as occuring during this time. I will endeavor to recall them. I remember sitting disconsolately upon the boxes on deck, watching with sympathetic misery the general looks of bereavement among the passengers, general weeping and sobbing, general long anxious faces, and much lamentation. I remember Katty energetically endeavoring to impress upon tlie minds of two stout siilors that sixteen trunks and cases and a number of packages, could be nicely pac\ed away in her cabin, without the slightest inconvenience. I remember a general revolt as to the inadequacy of accommodation, fierce Bpeecbe3 by excitrd emigrants, and much metaphorical punching of the heads of the ship agents and every member of their unfortunate families. I remember one red hot demagogue, frothing out tremendous sentences expressive of his burning desire to lay low the pride of the aristocracy, and to assert the rights of nature's noblemen, whicli results were to be accomplished by giving each passenger in The Rasper a separate poop to walk upon, with the addition of a pound oi meat and a loaf of bread to each steerage passenger every day of the voyage. I remember going down into the dark cabin with my companions, and J being immediately looked upon by those j already there as if I were an interloper aud had no manner of business among them. I I remember my amazement, upon Barauel and myself going to to our cabin, to find that two young Irishmen were to occupy it with us. and the utter enmity that, in one moment, the four of us contracted for one another. I remember, when our excitement was somewhat subsided, busying ourselves about the cabin, knocking up nails, and doing odd little jobs, such as improvising a wash hand stand and > fixing a looking glass in the Avail, which last achievement I look upon as a marvel of skill. While thus employed, the only medium of light in the cabin, the porthole window, is suddenly obscured, and we are thrust in darkness. Looking up I distinguished a dark body struggling to effect an entrance. What can it be ? After some suspense, I gain the painful experience that it is a bag of potatoes. I say painful, for it falls iipon my toes, and flattens a susceptible corn in the most effectual manner. lam about to rush out of the cabin, and give vent to an indignant remonstrance, when another bag tumbles through, and blocks up the doorway. This is followed by another and another, and as the potatoes tumble out of the bajjs as soon as they are thrust in, weare presently | seriously inconvenienced for"^wfeit"UTroom f | Samuel is perfectly astounded. I see his eyes rolling round and round in the same old perplexing manner. I also am somewhat be•wildered, and am laboring under the impression that we have by mistake located ourselves in the potatoe store-room, when the mystery is explained by the complicated entrance of the two Irishmen, from whose conversation I gather that this vegetable stock has been laid in for their especial delectation on the voyage. I remonstrate, but remonstrate in Vain. Issuing forth to narrate our wrongs to Katty and John, I am amazed to find the latter individual, with his shirt sleeves tucked up, excitedly challenging a red-headed, good-humoured looking giant to come on and have it out. Come on, shouts the diminutive hero, and have it out ; and to show his desire to have it out, John clenches hi^ fists and throws himself into a boxing attitude. After much anxious inquiry, I learn that John's agitation is c aused by the red-headed giant asserting his right to exactly one half of Katty's cabin. The red-headed giant has a red-headed wife, who has already gone to bed, and will not be prevailed upon to fret up. My troubles are speedily swallowed up in Katty's grief, who is quite cast down at at the idea of going to bed with that redheaded monster, as she terms him, in the room. I am presently so confused and dazed, that red headed men and red headed women and bags of potatoes and wild Irishmen are mixed together in my mind inexplicably. I have no remembrance of how Igo to bed, or how I get up, or how many days pass before we are all mustered, together on the deck, like a flock of very meek sheep, to be passed by the emigration officer. That individual, with scores of pimples stuck all over an egregiously red nose, calls out our names, one after another, to the tune of some five hundred and twenty, and mercilessly devotes us all to the waves. The day thus passed, I got to bed. Samuel and I sleep together over the two Irishmen ; I lay awake all night listening to their conversation, and when I do go to sleep, I am haunted with the ghost of every event that has occurred during the last forty-eight hours. Early in the morning lam awakened by a terrible scraping and thumping on the deck. Literally tumbling out of my berth, and thereby causing the two Irishmen to call upon the divilto saize me, for disturbing their sweet slumbers, I scramble up to the daylight,^ and find that we are really moving. The captain, a short but preposterously fat man, is bawling out orders that no one in the world can understand. The sailors are running about insanely with ropes in their hands, and a few passengers, evidently lunatics, are assisting them. We are lustily cheered as we pass the various craft on thr river. Ahead of us is the steamer that is tugging us out of the labyrinth of ships. It soon envelopes itself in its own smoke, the curls of which spread over the river like a thick haze. Eager eyes are looking out from every part of the deck to take their last looks of the land of their birth. The passengers generally are very low-spirited. The rampant demagogue alone is exultant. He shakes his fist at the distant spires and roofs, and grows poetical. Farewell your Hampton Courts, your Windsors, your Ilyde Parks and Buckingham Palaces ; farewell you, minions of a base aristocracy, you sycophantic lickspittles of paltry lucre. JNo mor,e monoplies of nature's beauties; ,no' more treading the necks of the poor under the heels of the rich. We go to a land where all are equal, et cetera, et cetera, etcetera. Thus for an hour the rampant demagogue, walking' up and down the deck with distended nostrils, . when the dinner bell sounding, he rushes io tlie cook'rt galley with frantic haste to'geihig soup and bouilli, I- do not re« - member hoAV many days pass before I am ill, and aui stricken down. - XpToii^S.j^Smhk singular illness! . My. bead Vs^i^l^roimd^aud jound, myLchest sipks into does not fill up the void : ''''' '^^^^^^^S 9 ' impotent, my arms are Wy PWJP^yj m y intellect is "%i!iiriDe^e> fay "general^epdirtment fe lunaiipal.

Such a wicked illness, too ! Athough I believe that nothing in this world can ever again afford me the slightest gratification; although I groan and pray that the vessel wouldn't " bout pfiip,"' ■wh.pn the skippor rlcstrcs ie, bat ivouM, instead, dish its rib", against a roc'f an-1 send us to the bottom ; nltho.igli ;rll hopo if go'ia far cvor and over and ever ; I still tfjcl a diabolical sitisfaction when I behold the pale woc-bcone face*? of Ivatty and Samuel. This latter individual is my sa\ioar at this critical juncture of my existence. If it were not ior the gratification he aflbrda me, if it were not for the utter misery depicted in his every movement, if it were not for his groans, and tours, and sob 3, I believe I should die. There is one time, I remember, when we are supposed to be in some danger, that the agitation on deck, the screaming of orders through the speakingtrumpet, the booming, stamping, roaring, do not in the least distress me. In the midst of the confusion I catch myself mumbling flic words, in a weak wandering manner, " Oh, L hope it will go down ; what's the use of living ? Go down, go down, go down," over and over again, expressive, I suppose, of my wish to be drowned off hand, without further notice. I am amazed and and disgusted at the consternation depicted upon the faces of many of my fellow-passengers, and fee! a kind of derisive pity for them that they should wish to live. Many thorns are implanted in my breast during my nickne^s. The worst of which is the red-headed giant. As I lay in my bunk, I sec him, through the half opened cabin door, eating away ibr his life. Nothing ails him. lie laughs like a hyena ; he gorges like a vulture. When he asks mo in the morning how T am getting on, and recommends me," with a broad grin, to "cat a bit o' summat.'' I pray inwardly for strength to throttle him. When he advises me to tie a piece of fat pork to a string and swallow it, and pull it up again, (the very idea sets me off again,) I can only repay him by wishing that the piece, of biscuit he is eating laay choice him. But 1 have some revenge on him. Ilis^ redheaded wife has never got out of bed since she came into the f ; hip She, too, is ill. Ha! ha! She, too, can't eat a morsel. As I la)- abed in the morning, contemplating my boots, which, having been deposited on the floor the night previous, arc now, by some inexplicable process, rolling about on. the ceiling, it i* some consolation to me to hear her groan and beseech her redheaded duplicate to throw her ovt. A request that I most devoutly pray he will comply with.

(To be continued.)