Everything was so new to me that, on embarking at Marseilles, I was never tired of inspecting the large steamer, and trying, with only moderate success, to talk to the French sailors, who, on learning our destination, were very civil; but, after the first day or two, began to joke me about never coming back any more.
It was comical work trying to make out what they meant as they began to talk to me about the terrible wild beasts I should meet, and, above all, about the orang-outangs, which they assured me were eight or nine feet high, and would look upon me, they assured me, as a bonne bouche.
The third day out on the beautiful blue water, as some of the passengers had guns out, and were shooting at the sea-birds for amusement merely, a practice that I should have thought very cruel but for the fact that they never once hit anything, Uncle Dick came up to me on the poop deck and clapped me on the shoulder.
“Now, Nat,” he said, “there’s plenty of room out here for a rifle ball to go humming away as far as it likes without danger to anyone; so get out your rifle and you shall have a practice.”
“At the sea-gulls, uncle?” I said.
“No, no; nonsense!” he said; “we don’t shoot sea-gulls with a rifle. I shall start you with a target.”
“A target, uncle?” I said; “but if you do, we shall leave it all behind in a very short time.”
“To be sure we shall,” he replied, laughing; “and then we’ll have another.”
I ran down and got my rifle out of the cabin, feeling half ashamed to go on deck again when I had fastened on my belt full of cartridges; but I got over my modesty, and joined my uncle, whom I found waiting for me with half a dozen black wine bottles, and as many bladders blown out tightly, while the bottles were empty and firmly corked.
“Now, Nat,” he said, “here are your targets, and I reckon upon your having half a dozen shots at each before the steamer takes us too far away, unless you manage to sink it sooner.”