Of a warm tropical day, this Surgeon's mate must needs go ashore
in his blue cloth boat-cloak, wearing it, with a gallant Spanish
toss, over his cavalier shoulder. By noon, he perspired very
freely; but then his cloak attracted all eyes, and that was huge
satisfaction. Nevertheless, his being knock-kneed, and spavined
of one leg, sorely impaired the effect of this hidalgo cloak,
which, by-the-way, was some-what rusty in front, where his chin
rubbed against it, and a good deal bedraggled all over, from his
having used it as a counterpane off Cape Horn.

As for the midshipmen, there is no knowing what their mammas
would have said to their conduct in Rio. Three of them drank a
good deal too much; and when they came on board, the Captain
ordered them to be sewed up in their hammocks, to cut short their
obstreperous capers till sober.

This shows how unwise it is to allow children yet in their teens
to wander so far from home. It more especially illustrates the
folly of giving them long holidays in a foreign land, full of
seductive dissipation. Port for men, claret for boys, cried Dr.
Johnson. Even so, men only should drink the strong drink of
travel; boys should still be kept on milk and water at home.
Middies! you may despise your mother's leading-strings, but they
are the _man-ropes_ my lads, by which many youngsters have
steadied the giddiness of youth, and saved themselves from
lamentable falls. And middies! know this, that as infants, being
too early put on their feet, grow up bandy-legged, and curtailed
of their fair proportions, even so, my dear middies, does it
morally prove with some of you, who prematurely are sent off to sea.