Our visitor did not want much inviting, for he rolled in over the side, and squatted down on a locker, as if he had known us all his life.  He was a little round-bodied, big-fisted, ruddy man, of about sixty; a thorough water-dog, who, when his tongue was loosened spun yarns and sang us songs till near midnight.  He was about the merriest little man I ever met.  He had served twenty years in the navy, and was an old wooden frigate man, full to the brim with anecdotes.  I thought at the time that it would be worth while for some enterprising editor to send out an expedition to capture him and make him spin yarns to fill up an otherwise uninteresting column of some weekly paper.  If I had the space at my command I would recapitulate some of his stories here, but I have not.  If I had, my readers would have to take such frequent pinches of salt that they would have a most tantalizing drought upon them, one which would be most difficult to quench.

We obtained information as to our whereabouts, and found that we were anchored in a little bay in the estuary of the Colne, about a mile from the town of Brightlingsea.

On the 7th the sun rose in great splendour, reminding one of the verse: 

     “The night is past, and morning, like a queen
       Deck’d in her glittering jewels, stately treads,
     With her own beauty flushing fair the scene,
       The while o’er all her robe of light she spreads.”

At six a.m. we were again under weigh (after a good breakfast), and close in with the land, which we hugged right away to Yarmouth, as it was our nearest course.

Speaking of breakfast reminds me of eating, and eating of diet, and diet of health; and this again of my diet on Jethou.  Two years ago I used to laugh at vegetarians and call them “pap-eaters,” “milk-and-water men,” and other pretty names; but while I was in Jethou I had cause to think there was not only something in their theory but much.

When the weather was too rough for me to fish, I have often lived for a week or ten days on vegetarian diet, for although I had tinned meat I got tired of it in warm weather, and only ate it occasionally when the days were cold.  The pig I killed was more than three-parts thrown away, as I did not properly salt it; so my pork store did not last long.

I used frequently to cut several slices of bread and stroll about the garden and eat my breakfast direct from the bushes, while sometimes I would cook a fish and eat, finishing up with three or four apples or tomatoes with biscuits.  Dinner would perhaps consist of a saucepan of potatoes with a fish of some kind, then a rice pudding, or something equally simple, and some cooked fruit eaten with it.  I used invariably to stroll through the garden daily and pluck a little of whatever fruit was ripe.  I had no meal which corresponded to a tea, but after work took supper, which usually consisted of a scrap of meat or fish,