1852.] SAIL FOR ENGLAND. 271
quite unremunerative. I heard many stories of miraculous cures of the yellow fever, when at its worst stage, and after the parties had been given up by the doctors. One had been cured by eating ices, another by drinking a bottle of wine ; ices, in fact, had got into great favour as a fine tonic, and were taken daily by many persons as a most useful medicine.
I agreed for my passage in the brig Helen, two hundred and thirty-five tons, Captain John Turner, whose property she was ; and on the morning of Monday, the 12th of July, we got aboard, and bade adieu to the white houses and waving palm-trees of Para. Our cargo consisted of about a hundred and twenty tons of india-rubber, and a quantity of cocoa, arnotto, piassaba, and balsam of capivi. About two days after we left I had a slight attack of fever, and almost thought that I was still doomed to be cut off by the dread disease which had sent my brother and so many of my countrymen to graves upon a foreign shore. A little calomel and opening medicines, how- ever, soon set me right again ; but as I was very weak, and suffered much from sea-sickness, I spent most of my time in the cabin. For three weeks we had very light winds and fine weather, and on the 6th of August had reached about latitude 30 30' north, longitude 52 west.
On that morning, after breakfast, I was reading in the cabin, when the Captain came down and said to me, " I'm afraid the ship's on fire; come and see what you think of it," and proceeded to examine the lazaretto, or small hole under the floor where the provisions are kept, but no signs of fire were visible there. We then went on deck to the forepart of the ship, where we found a dense vapoury smoke issuing from the forecastle. The fore hatchway was immediately opened, and, the smoke issuing there also, the men were set to work clearing out part of the cargo. After throwing out some quantity without any symptom of approaching the seat of the fire, we opened the after hatchway ; and here the smoke was much more dense, and in a very short time became so suffo- cating, that the men could not stay in the hold to throw out more cargo, so they were set to work pouring in water, while others proceeded to the cabin, and now found abundance of smoke issuing from the lazaretto, whence it entered through the joints of the bulkhead which separated it from the hold. Attempts were now made to break this bulkhead down but
