So one fine morning I throws a young kangaroo on my shoulder, and off I starts. I swam for three months, night and day, and then feeling a little tired, I laid-to on my back, and then I set off again; but by this time I was so covered with barnacles, that I made but little way. So I stopped at Ascension, scraped and cleaned myself, and then, after feeding for a week on turtle, just to keep the scurvy out of my bones, I set off again; and as I passed the Gut, I thought I might just as well put in here; and here I arrived, sure enough, yesterday about three bells in the morning watch, after a voyage of five months and three days.
When Mustapha translated all this to the pacha, the latter was lost in astonishment. “Allah wakbar! God is every where! Did you ever hear of such a swimmer? Twenty thousand miles—five months and three days. It is a wonderful story! Let his mouth be filled with gold.”
Mustapha intimated to the sailor the unexpected compliment about to be conferred on him, just as he had finished the bottle, and rolled it away on one side. “Well, that be a rum way of paying a man. I have heard it said that a fellow pursed up his mouth but I never afore heard of a mouth being a purse. Howsomever, all’s one for that; only, d’ye see, if you are about to stow it away in bulk, it may be just as well to get rid of the dunnage.”
The sailor put his thumb and forefinger into the cheek, and pulled out his enormous quid of tobacco. “There now, I’m ready, and don’t be afraid of choking me.” One of the attendants then thrust several pieces of gold into the sailor’s mouth, who spitting them all out into his hat, jumped on his legs, made a jerk of his head with a kick of the leg behind to the pacha; and declaring that he was the funniest old beggar he had ever fallen in with, nodded to Mustapha, and hastened out of the divan.
“Mashallah! but he swims well,” said the pacha, breaking up the audience.