XVII. The Third Cruise of the Wave…

XVII. The Third Cruise of the Wave

‘Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean-roll! Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain: Man marks the earth with ruin--his control Stops with the shore,--upon the watery plain The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain A shadow of man’s ravage, save his own, When for a moment, like a drop of rain He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan, Without a grave, unknell’d, uncoffin’d, and unknown.

Byron, Childe Harold, IV 1603--11.

I had been invited to breakfast on board the corvette, on the morning after this; and Captain Transom, Mr Bang, and myself, were comfortably seated at our meal on the quarterdeck, under the awning, skreened off by flags from the view of the men. The ship was riding to a small westerly breeze, that was rippling up the bight. The ports on each quarter, as well as the two in the stern, were open, through which we had an extensive view of Port-au-Prince, and the surrounding country.

“Now, Transom,” said our amigo Massa Aaron, “I am quite persuaded that the town astern of us there must always have been, and is now, exceedingly unhealthy. Only reflect on its situation; it fronts the west, with the hot sickening afternoon’s sun blazing on it every evening, along the glowing mirror of the calm bight, under whose influence the fat black mud that composes the beach must send up most pestilent effluvia; while in the forenoon it is shut out from the influence of the regular easterly sea-breeze, or trade-wind, by the high land behind. However, as I don’t mean to stay here longer than I can help, it is not my affair; and as Mr. S----will be waiting for us, pray order your carriage, my dear fellow, and let us go on shore.”

The carriage our friend spoke of, was the captain’s gig, by this time alongside, ready manned, each of the six seamen who composed her crew, with his oar resting between his knees, the blade pointed upwards towards the sky. We all go in “Shove off” dip fell the oars into the water “Give way, men” the good ash staves groaned, and cheeped, and the water buzzed, and away we shot towards the wharf. We landed, and having proceeded to Mr S---‘s, we found horses ready for us, to take our promised ride into the beautiful plain of the Cul de Sac, lying to the northward and eastward of the town; the cavalcade being led by Massa Aaron and myself, while Mr S----rode beside Captain Transom.

Aforetime, from the estates situated on this most magnificent plain, (which extends about fifteen miles into the interior, while its width varies from ten to five miles, being surrounded by hills on three sides,) there used to be produced no less than thirty thousand hogsheads of sugar. This was during the ancient regime; whereas, now, I believe, the only articles it yields beyond plantains, yams, and pot herbs for the supply of the town, are a few gallons of syrup, and a few puncheons of tafla, a very inferior kind of rum. The whole extent of the sea like plain, for there is throughout scarcely any inequality higher than my staff, was once covered with well-cultivated fields and happy homes; but now, alas! with brushwood from six to ten feet high,--in truth, by one sea of jungle, through which you have to thread your difficult way along narrow, hot, sandy bridle-paths, (with the sand flies and musquittoes flaying you alive,) which every now and then lead you to some old ruinous court-yard, with the ground strewed with broken boilers and mill-rollers, and decaying hardwood timbers, and crumbling bricks; while, a little further on, you shall find the blackened roofless walls of what was most probably an unfortunate planter’s once happy home, where the midnight brigand came and found peace and comfort, and all the elegancies of life, and left-blood and ashes; with the wild flowers growing on the window sills, and the prickly pear on the tops of the walls, while marble steps, and old shutters, and window hinges, and pieces of china, are strewn all about; the only tenant now being most likely an old miserable negro who has sheltered himself in a coarsely thatched hut, in a corner of what had once been a gay and well furnished saloon.

After having extended our ride, under a hot broiling sun, until two o’clock in the afternoon, we hove about, and returned towards the town. We had not ridden on our homeward journey above three miles, when we overtook a tall good-looking negro, dressed in white Osnaburg trowsers, rolled up to his knees, and a check shirt. He wore neither shoes nor stockings, but his head was bound round with the usual handkerchief, over which he wore a large glazed cocked hat, with a most conspicuous Haytian blue-and-red cockade. He was goading on a jackass before him, loaded with a goodly burden apparently; but what it was we could not tell, as the whole was covered by a large sheepskin, with the wool outermost. I was pricking past the man, when Mr S----sung out to me to shorten sail, and the next moment he startled me by addressing the pedestrian as Colonel Gabaroche. The colonel returned the salute, and seemed in no way put out from being detected in this rather unmilitary predicament. He was going up to Port-au-Prince to take his turn of duty with his regiment. Presently up came another half-naked black fellow, with the same kind of glazed hat and handkerchief under it; but he was mounted, and his nag was not a bad one by any means. It was Colonel Gabaroche’s Captain of Grenadiers, Papotiere by name. He was introduced to us, and we all moved jabbering along. At the time I write of, the military force of the Haytian Republic was composed of one third of the whole male population capable of bearing arms, which third was obliged to be on permanent duty for four months every year; but the individuals of the quota were allowed to follow their callings as merchants, planters, or agriculturists, during the remaining eight months; they were, I believe, fed by Government during their four months of permanent duty. The weather, by the time we had ridden a couple of miles farther, began to lower, and presently, large heavy drops of rain fell, and preserving their globular shape, rolled like peas, or rather like bullets, amidst the small finely pulverized dust of the sandy path. “Umbrella” was the word--but this was a luxury unknown to our military friends. However, the colonel immediately unfurled a blanket from beneath the sheepskin, and sticking his head through a hole in the centre of it, there he stalked like a herald in his tabard, with the blanket hanging down before and behind him. As for the captain he dismounted, disencumbered himself of his trowsers, which he crammed under the mat that served him for a saddle, and taking off his shirt, he stowed it away in the capacious crown of his cocked hat, while he once more bestrid his Bucephalus in puris naturalibus, but conversing with all the ease in the world, and the most perfect sangfroid, while the thunder shower came down in bucketfuls. In about half an hour, we arrived at the skirt of the brushwood or jungle, and found on our left hand some rice fields, which from appearance we could not have distinguished from young wheat; but on a nearer approach, we perceived that the soil, if soil it could be called on which there was no walking, was a soft mud, the only passages through the fields, and along the ridges, being by planks, on which several of the labourers were standing as we passed, one of whom turning to look at us, slipped off, and instantly sunk amidst the rotten slime up to his waist. The neighbourhood of these rice swamps is generally extremely unhealthy. At length we got on board the Firebrand, drenched to the skin, to a late dinner, after which it was determined by Captain Transom--of which intention, by the by, with all his familiarity, I had not the smallest previous notice--that I should cross the island to Jacmel, in order to communicate with the merchant-ships loading there; and by the time I returned, it was supposed the Firebrand would be ready for sea, when I was to be detached in the Wave, to whip in the craft at the different out ports, after which we were all to sail in a fleet to Port Royal.

“I say, skipper,” quoth Mr Bang, “I have a great mind to ride with Tom what say you?”

“Why, Aaron, you are using me ill; that shaver is seducing you altogether; but come, you won’t be a week away, and if you want to go, I see no objection.”

It was fixed accordingly, and on the morrow Mr Bang and I completed our arrangements, hired horses, and a guide, and all being in order, clothes packed, and every thing else made ready for the cruise, we rode out along with Mr S----(we were to dine and sleep at his house) to view the fortifications on the hill above the town, the site of Christophe’s operations when he besieged the place; and pretty hot work they must have had of it, for in two different places the trenches of the besiegers had been pushed on to the very crest of the glacis, and in one the counterscarp had been fairly blown into the ditch, disclosing the gallery of the mine behind, as if it had been a cave, the crest of the glacis having remained entire. We walked into it, and Mr S----pointed out where the President’s troops, in Fort Republicain, had countermined, and absolutely entered the other chamber from beneath, after the explosion, and, sword in hand, cut off the storming party, (which had by this time descended into the ditch,) and drove them up through the breach into the fort, where they were made prisoners.

The assault had been given three times in one night, and he trembled for the town; however, Petion’s courage and indomitable resolution saved them all. For by making a sally from the south gate at grey dawn, even when the firing on the hill was hottest, and turning the enemy’s flank, he poured into the trenches, routed the covering party, stormed the batteries, spiked the guns, and that evening’s sun glanced on the bayonets of King Henry’s troops as they raised the siege, and fell back in great confusion on their lines, leaving the whole of their battering train, and a great quantity of ammunition, behind them.

Next morning we were called at daylight, and having accoutred ourselves for the journey, we descended and found two stout ponies, the biggest not fourteen hands high, ready saddled, with old fashioned demi piques, and large holsters at each of the saddlebows. A very stout mule was furnished for Monsieur Pegtop; and our black guide, who had contracted for our transit across the island, was also in attendance, mounted on a very active, well-actioned horse. We had coffee, and started. By the time we reached Leogane, the sun was high and fierce. Here we breakfasted in a low one--story building, our host being no smaller man than Major L----of the Fourth Regiment of the line. We got our chocolate, and eggs, and fricasseed fowl, and roasted yam, and in fact made, even according to friend Aaron’s conception of matters, an exceedingly comfortable breakfast.

Mr Bang here insisted on being paymaster, and tendered a sum that the black major thought so extravagantly great, considering the entertainment we had received, that he declined taking more than one half. However, Mr Bang, after several unavailing attempts to press the money on the man, who, by the by, was simply a good looking blackamoor, dressed in a check shirt, coarse but clean white duck trowsers, with the omnipresent handkerchief bound round his head, and finding that he could not persist without giving offence, was about pocketing the same, when Pegtop audibly whispered him, “Massa, you ever shee black niger refuse money before? but don’t take it to heart, massa; me, Pegtop, will pocket him, if dat foolis black person won’t.”

“Thank you for nothing, Master Pegtop,” said Aaron.

We proceeded, and rode across the beautiful plain, gradually sloping up from the mangrove--covered beach, until it swelled into the first range of hills that formed the pedestal of the high precipitous ridge that intersected the southern prong of the island, winding our way through the ruins of sugar plantations, with fragments of the machinery and implements employed in the manufacture scattered about, and half sunk into the soil of the fields, which were fast becoming impervious jungle, and interrupting our progress along the narrow bridle-paths. At length we began to ascend, and the comparative coolness of the climate soon evinced that we were rapidly leaving the hot plains, as the air became purer, and thinner, at every turn. After a long, hot, hot ride, we reached the top of the ridge, and turning back had a most magnificent view of the whole Bight of Leogane, and of the Horseshoe, and Aaron’s Frog; even the tops of the mountains above the Mole, which could not have been nearer than seventy miles, were visible, floating like islands or blue clouds in the misty distance. Aaron took off his hat, reined up, and turning the head of his Bucephalus towards the placid waters we had left, stretched forth his hand:

‘Ethereal air, and ye swift-winged winds, Ye rivers springing from fresh founts, ye waves That o’er the interminable ocean wreathe Your crisped smiles, thou all-producing Earth, And thee, bright Sun, I call, whose flaming orb Views the wide world beneath. See!’

Nearly got a stroke of the sun, Tom--what Whiffle would call a cul de sac by taking off my chapeau in my poetical frenzy so shove on.

We continued our journey through most magnificent defiles, and under long avenues of the most superb trees, until, deeply embosomed in the very heart of the eternal forest, we came to a shady clump of bamboos, overhanging, with their ostrich-feather-like plumes, a round pool of water, mantled or creamed over with a bright green coating, as if it had been vegetable velvet, but nothing akin to the noisome scum that ferments on a stagnant pool in England. It was about the time we had promised ourselves dinner, and in fact our black guide and Pegtop had dismounted, to make their preparations.

“Why, we surely cannot dine here? you don’t mean to drink of that stagnant pool, my dear sir?”

“Siste paulisper, my boy,” said Mr Bang, as he stooped down, and skimmed off the green covering with his hand, disclosing the water below, pure and limpid as a crystal-clear fountain. We dined on the brink, and discussed a bottle of vin-de-grave a-piece, and then had a small pull at brandy and water; but we ate very little, although I was very hungry, but Mr Bang would not let me feed largely.

“Now, Tom, you really do not understand things. When one rides a goodish journey on end--say seventy miles or so--on the same horse, one never feeds the trusty creature with half a bushel of oats; at least if any wooden spoon does, the chances are he knocks him up. No, no--you give him a mouthful of corn, but plenty to drink, little meal and water here, and a bottle of porter in water there, and he brings you in handsomely. Zounds! how would you yourself, Tom, like to dine on turtle soup and venison, in the middle of a hissing hot ride of sixty miles, thirty of them to be covered after the feed? Lord! what between the rich food and the punch, you would have fermented like a brewer’s vat before you reached the end of the journey; and if you had not a boll imperial measure of carbonate of soda with you, the chances are you would explode like a catamaran, your head flying through some old woman’s window, and capsizing her teapot on the one hand, while on the other your four quarters are scattered north, south, east, and west. But Gaudeamus, sweet is pleasure after pains Tom, and all you sailors and tailors--I love to class you together--are tender--not hearted creatures. Strange now that there should be three classes of his Majesty’s subjects, who never can be taught to ride,--to whom riding is, in fact, a physical impossibility; and these three are the aforesaid sailors and tailors, and dragoon officers. However, hand me the brandy bottle; and, Pegtop, spate me that black jack that you are rinsing--so. Useful commodity, a cup of this kind.” here our friend dashed in a large qualifier of cognac, “it not only conceals the quality of the water, for you can sometimes perceive the animalculae hereabouts without a microscope, but also the strength of the libation. So--a piece of biscuit now, and the smallest morsel of that cold tongue--your health, Thomas”--a long pull--“speedy promotion to you, Thomas.” Here our friend rested the jug on his knee. “Were you ever at a Gaudeamus of Presbyterian clergymen on the Monday after the Sacrament Sunday, Tom, that is, at the dinner at the manse?”

“No, my dear sir; you know I am an Episcopalian.”

“And I am a Roman Catholic. What then? I have been at a Gaudeamus, and why might not you have been at one too? Oh the fun of such a meeting! the feast of reason, and the flow of Ferintosh, I and the rich stories, ay, fatter than ever I would venture on, and the cricket-like chirps of laughter of the probationer, and the loud independent guffaw of the placed minister, and the sly innuendos about the land round the Jordan, when our freens get half foo. Oh how I honour a Gaudeamus! And why,” he continued, “should the excellent men not rejoice, Tom? Are they not the very men who should be happy? Is a minister to be for ever boxed up in his pulpit--for ever to be wagging his pow, bald, black, or grizzled as it may be, beneath his sounding board, like a bullfrog below a toadstool. And like the aforesaid respectable quadruped or biped (it has always puzzled me which to call it), is he never to drink any thing stronger than water? Hath not a minister eyes? hath not a minister hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, that another man is? If you prick them, do they not bleed? If you tickle them, do they not laugh? And shall we grudge them a Caudeamus now and then? Shall opera peracta ludemus be in the mouths of an mankind, from the dirty little greasy-faced schoolboy, who wears a red gown and learns the Humanities and Whiggery in the Nineveh of the West, I as the Bailie glories to call it, to the King upon his throne, and a dead letter, as well as a dead language, to them, and them only? Forbid it, the Honourable the Lord Provost--forbid it, the Honourable the Lord Provost and all the Bailies, and those who sit in Council with them! Forbid it,--the whole august aggregate of terror to evildoers, and praise of them who do well! Forbid it, the Devil and Dr Faustus!”

By this time I had smuggled the jug out of our amigo’s claw, and had done honour to his pledge. “Do you know, my dear Mr Bang, I have always been surprised that a man of your strong intellect, and clear views of most matters, should continue, in profession at least, a Roman Catholic?”

Aaron looked at me with a seriousness, an unaffected seriousness in his manner, that possessed me with the notion that I had taken an unwarrantable liberty. “Profession,” at length said he, slowly and deliberately, apparently weighing every word carefully as it fell from him, as one is apt to do when approaching an interesting subject, on which you desire not to be misunderstood--“Profession--what right have you to assume this of me or any man, that my mode of faith is but profession?” and then the kind-hearted fellow, perceiving that his rebuke had mortified me, altering his tone, continued, but still with a strong tinge of melancholy in his manner--“Alas! Tom, how often will weak man, in his great arrogance, assume the prerogative of his Maker, and attempt to judge--honestly, we will even allow, according to his conception--of the heart and secret things of another, but too often, in reality, by the evil scale of his own! Shall the potsherd say to his frail fellow, Thou art weak, but I am strong? Shall the moudiewort say to his brother mole--(I say, Quashie, mind that mule of yours don’t snort in the water, will ye?)--Blind art thou, but lo, I see? Ah, Tom, I am a Roman Catholic; but is it thou who shalt venture down into the depths of my heart, and then say, whether I be so in profession only, or in stern unswerving sincerity?”

I found I had unwittingly touched a string that vibrated to his heart. “I am a Roman Catholic, but, I humbly trust, not a bigoted one; for were it not against the canons of both our churches, I fear I should incline to the doctrine of Pope.”

‘He can’t be wrong whose life is in the right.’

“My fathers, Tom, were all Catholics before me; they may have been wrong; but I am only my father’s son--not a better, and, I fear, I fear, not so wise a man.--Pray, Tom, did you ever hear of even a good Jew, who, being converted, did not become a bad Christian? Have you not all your life had a repugnance to consort with a sinner converted from the faith of his fathers, whether they were Jews or Gentiles, Hindoos or Mahomedans, dwellers in Mesopotamia, or beyond Jordan? You have such a repugnance, Tom, I know; and I have it too.”

“Well,” I proceeded, on the strength of the brandy grog, “in the case of an unenlightened, or ignorant, or half-educated man, I might indeed suspect duplicity, or even hypocrisy, at the bottom of the abjuration of his fathers creed; but in a gentleman of your acquirements and knowledge....”

“There again now, Cringle, you are wrong. The clodhopper might be conscientious in a change of creed, but as to the advantage I have over him from superior knowledge!--Knowledge, Tom! what do I know--what does the greatest and the best of us know--to venture on a saying somewhat of the tritest--but that he knows nothing? Oh, my dear boy, you and I have hitherto consorted together on the deck of life, so to speak, with the bright joyous sun sparkling, and the blue heavens laughing overhead, and the clear green sea dancing under foot, and the merry breeze buzzing past us right cheerily. We have seen but the fair-weather side of each other, Thomas, without considering that all men have their deep feelings, that lie far, far down in the hold of their hearts, were they but stirred up. Ay, you smile at my figures, but I repeat it--in the deep hold of their hearts; and may I not follow out the image with verity and modesty, and say that those feelings, often too deep for tears, are the ballast that keeps the whole ship in trim, and without which we should be every hour of our existence liable to be driven out of our heavenward course, yea, to broach--to and founder, and sink for ever, under one of the many squalls in this world of storms? And here, in this most beautiful spot, with the deep, dark, crystal-clear pool at our feet, fringed with the velvet grass, and the green quivering leaf above flickering between us and the bright blue cloudless sky, and the everlasting rocks, with those diamond-like tears trickling down their rugged cheeks, impending over us,--and those gigantic gnarled trees, with their tracery of black withes fantastically tangled, whose naked roots twist and twine amongst the fissures, like serpents trying to shelter themselves from the scorching rays of the vertical sun, and those feather-like bamboos high arching overhead, and screening us under their noble canopy,--and the cool plantains, their broad ragged leaves bending under the weight of dew-spangles, and the half-opened wild-flowers,--yea, even here, the ardent noontide sleeping on the hill, when even the quickeyed lizard lies still, and no longer rustles through the dry grass, and there is not a breath of air strong enough out of heaven to stir the gossamer that floats before us, or to wave that wild flower on its hair like stem, or to ruffle the fairy plumage of the humming-bird, that, against the custom of its kind, is now quietly perched thereon; and while the bills of the chattering paroquets, that are peering at us from the branches above, are closed, and the woodpecker interrupts his tapping to look down upon us, and the only sound we hear is the moaning of the wood-pigeon, and the lulling buzz of myriads of happy insects booming on the ear, loud as the rushing of a distant waterfall--(Confound these musquittoes, though!)--Even here, on this:”

‘So sweet a spot of earth, you might, I ween, Have guessed some congregation of the elves, To sport by summer moons, had shaped it for themselves.’

Even in such a place could I look forward without a shudder, to set up my everlasting rest, to lay my weary bones in the earth, and to mingle my clay with that whereout it was moulded. No fear of being houcked here, Thomas, and preserved in a glass case, like a stuffed woodcock, in Surgeons Hall. I am a barbarian, Tom, in these respects--I am a barbarian, and nothing of a philosopher. Quiero Paz is to be my epitaph. Quiero Paz--‘Cursed be he who stirs these bones.’ Did not even Shakspeare write it? What poetry in this spot, Thomas! Oh,

‘There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is society, where none intrudes, By the deep sea, and music in its roar: I love not man the less, but nature more, From these our interviews, in which I steal From all I may be, or have been before, To mingle with the universe, and feel What I can ne’er express, yet cannot all conceal.’

“Yes, even here where nature is all beautiful and every thing, and man abject and nothing even here, Tom, amidst the loneliness of earth, rugged and half-mad as you must sometimes have thought me, a fellow wholly made up of quips and jests,--even I at this moment could, like an aboriginal Charibl of the land, ‘lift up my voice to the Great Spirit,’ and kneel, and weep, and pray.”

I was much moved.

“You have spoken of knowledge, Tom. Knowledge--what do I know? Of myself I know as little as I do of any other grub that crawls on the surface of this world of sin and suffering; and what I do know, adds little to my self-esteem, Tom, and affords small encouragement to enquire further.--Knowledge, say you? How is that particle of sand here? I cannot tell. How grew that blade of grass? I do not know. Even when I look into that jug of brandy grog, (I’ll trouble you for it, Thomas,) all that I know is, that if I drink it, it will make me drunk, and a more desperately wicked creature, if that were possible, than I am already. And when I look forth on the higher and more noble objects of the visible creation, abroad on this beautiful earth, above on the glorious universe studded with shining orbs, without number numberless, what can I make of them? Nothing absolutely nothing--yet they are all creatures like myself. But--if I try--audaciously try--to strain my finite faculties, in the futile attempt to take in what is infinite--if I aspiringly, but hopelessly, grapple with the idea of the immensity of space, for instance, which my reason yet tells me must of necessity be boundless--do I not fall fluttering to the earth again, like an owl flying against the noontide sun? Again, when I venture to think of eternity--ay, when, reptile as I feel myself to be, I even look up towards heaven, and bend my erring thoughts towards the Most High, the Maker of all things, who was, and is, and is to come; whose flaming minister, even while I speak, is pouring down a flood of intolerable day on one half of the dry earth, and all that therein is; and when I reflect on what this tremendous, this inscrutable Being has done for me and my sinful race, so beautifully shown forth in both our creeds, what do I know? but that I am a poor miserable worm, crushed before the moth, whose only song should be the miserere, whose only prayer ‘God be merciful to me a sinner!”

There was a long pause, and I began to fear that my friend was shaken in his mind, for he continued to look steadfastly into the clear black water, where he had skimmed off the green velvet coating with his stick.

“Ay, and is it even so? and is it Tom Cringle who thinks and says that I am a man likely to profess to believe what he knows in his heart to be a lie? A Roman Catholic! Had I lived before the Roman Conquest I would have been a Druid, for it is not under the echoing domes of our magnificent cathedrals, with all the grandeur of our ritual, the flaming tapers, and bands of choristers, and the pealing organ, and smoking censers, and silver-toned bells, and white-robed priests, that the depths of my heart are stirred up. It is here, and not in a temple made with hands, however gorgeous--here, in the secret places of the everlasting forest,--it is in such a place as this that I feel the immortal spark within me kindling into a flame, and wavering up heavenward. I am superstitious, Thomas, I am superstitious, when left alone in such a scene as this. I can walk through a country churchyard at midnight, and stumble amongst the rank grass that covers the graves of those I have lived with and loved, even if they be ‘green in death, and festering in their shrouds,’ with the wind moaning amongst the stunted yew-trees, and the rain splashing and scattering on the moss covered tombstones, and the blinding blue lightning flashing, while the headstones glance like an array of sheeted ghosts, and the thunder is grumbling overhead, without a qualm-direness of this kind cannot once daunt me; it is here and now, when all nature sleeps in the ardent noontide, that I become superstitious, and would not willingly be left alone. Thoughts too deep for tears!--ay, indeed, and there be such thoughts, that, long after time has allowed them to subside, and when, to the cold eye of the world, all is clear and smooth above, will, when stirred up, like the sediment of this fountain of the wood, discolour and embitter the whole stream of life once more, even after the lapse of long long years. When my heart crushing loss was recent--when the wound was green, I could not walk abroad at this to me witching time of day, without a stock or a stone, a distant mark on the hill-side, or the outline of the grey cliff above, taking the very fashion of her face, or figure, on which I would gaze, and gaze, as if spell-bound, until I knew not whether to call it a grouping of the imagination, or a reality from without--or her, with whom I fondly hoped to have travelled the weary road of life. Friends approved--fortune smiled--one little month, and we should have been one; but it pleased Him, to whom in my present frame of mind I dare not look up, to blight my beautiful flower, to canker my rose-bud, to change the fair countenance of my Elizabeth, and send her away. She drooped and died, even like that pale flower under the scorching sun; and I was driven forth to worship Mammon, in these sweltering climes; but the sting remains, the barbed arrow sticks fast.”

Here the cleared surface of the water, into which he was steadfastly looking, was gradually contracted into a small round spot about a foot in diameter, by the settling back of the green floating matter that he had skimmed aside. His countenance became very pale; he appeared even more excited than he had hitherto been.

“By heavens! look in that water, if the green covering of it has not arranged itself round the clear spot into the shape of a medallion into her features! I had dreamed of such things before, but now it is a palpable reality--it is her face--her straight nose--her Grecian upper lip--her beautiful forehead, and her very bust!--even,”

‘As when years apace had bound her lovely waist with woman’s zone.’

“Oh, Elizabeth--Elizabeth!”

Here his whole frame shook with the most intense emotion, but at length, tears, unwonted tears, did come to his relief, and he hid his face in his hands, and wept bitterly. I was now convinced he was mad, but I durst not interrupt him. At length he slowly removed his hands, by which time, however, a beautiful small black diver, the most minute species of duck that I ever saw--it was not so big as my fist--but which is common in woodland ponds in the West Indies, had risen in the centre of the eye of the fountain, while all was so still that it floated quietly like a leaf on the water, apparently without the least fear of us.

“The devil appeared in Paradise under the shape of a cormorant,” said Mr Bang, half angrily, as he gazed sternly at the unlooked for visitor; “what imp art thou?”

Tip--the little fellow dived; presently it rose again in the same place, and lifting up its little foot, scratched the side of its tiny yellow bill and little red-spotted head, shook its small wings, bright and changeable as shot silk, with a snow-white pen-feather in each, and then tipped up its little purple tail, and once more disappeared.

Aaron’s features were gradually relaxing; a change was coming over the spirit of his dream. The bird appeared for the third time, looked him in the face, first turning up one little sparkling eye, and then another, with its neck changing its hues like a pigeon’s. Aaron began to smile; he gently raised his stick--“Do you cock your fud at me, you tiny thief, you?”--and thereupon he struck at it with his stick. Tip the duck dived, and did not rise again; and all that he got was a sprinkling shower in the face, from the water flashing up at his blow, and once more the green covering settled back again, and the bust of his dead love, or what he fancied to be so, disappeared. Aaron laughed outright, arose, and began to shout to the black guide, who, along with Pegtop, had taken the beasts into the wood in search of provender. “Ayez le bont de donnez moi mon cheval? Bring us the horsos, Massa Bungo-venga los quadrupedos--make haste, vite, mucho, mucho.”

Come, there is my Massa Aaron once more, at all events, thought I; but oh, how unlike the Aaron of five minutes ago!

“So now let us mount, my boy,” said he, and we shoved along until the evening fell, and the sun bid us good-by very abruptly. “Cheep, Cheep,” sung the lizards--“chirp, chirp,” sung the crickets, “snore, snore,” moaned the tree-toad--and it was night.

“Dame Nature shifts the scene without much warning here, Thomas,” said Massa Aaron; “we must get along, Doechez, mon cher--doechez, diggez votre spurs into the flankibus of votre cheval, mon ami,” shouted Aaron to our guide.

“Oui, monsieur,” replied the man, ‘mais’

I did not like this ominous “but,” nevertheless we rode on. No more did Massa Aaron. The guide repeated his mais again. “Mais, mon filo,” said Bang, “mais--que meanez vous by baaing comme un sheep, eh? Que vizzy vous, eh?”

We were at this time riding in a bridle-road, to which the worst sheep paths in Westmoreland would have been a railway, with our horses every now and then stumbling and coming down on their noses on the deep red earth, while we as often stood a chance of being pitched bodily against some tree on the path-side. But we were by this time all alive again, the dullness of repletion having evaporated; and Mr Bang, I fancied, began to peer anxiously about him, and to fidget a good deal, and to murmur and grumble something in his gizzard about “arms--no arms,” as, feeling in his starboard holster, he detected a regular long cork of claret, where he had hoped to clutch a pistol, while in the larboard, by the praiseworthy forethought of our guide, a good roasted capon was ensconced. “I say, Tom tohoo mind I don’t shoot you,” presenting the bottle of claret. “If it had been soda water, and the wire not all the stronger, I might have had a chance in this climate--but we are somewhat caught here, my dear we have no arms.”

“Poo,” said I, “never mind--no danger at hand, take my word for it.”

“May be not, may be not--but, Pegtop, you scoundrel, why did you not fetch my pistols?”

“Eigh, you go fight, massa?”

“Fight! no, you booby; but could not your own numscull--the fellow’s a fool--so come--ride on, ride on.”

Presently we came to an open space, free of trees, where the moon shone brightly; it was a round precipitous hollow, that had been excavated apparently by the action of a small clear stream or spout of water, that sparkled in the moonbeams like a web of silver tissue, as it leaped in a crystal arch over our heads from the top of a rock about twenty feet high, that rose on our right hand, the summit clearly and sharply defined against the blue firmament, while, on the left, was a small hollow or ravine, down which the rivulet gurgled and vanished; while ahead the same impervious forest prevailed, beneath which we had been travelling for so many hours.

The road led right through this rugged hollow, crossing it about the middle, or, if any thing, nearer the base of the cliff; and the whole clear space between the rock and the branches of the opposite trees might have measured twenty yards. In front of us, the path took a turn to the left, as if again entering below the dark shadow of the wood; but towards the right, with the moon shining brightly on it, there was a most beautiful bank, clear of underwood, and covered with the finest short velvet grass that could be dreamed of as a fitting sward to be pressed by fairy feet. We all halted in the centre of the open space.

“See how the moonlight sleeps on yonder bank!” said I.

“I don’t know what sleeps there, Tom,” said Aaron; “but does that figure sleep, think you?” pointing to the dark crest of the precipitous eminence of the right hand, from which the moonlight rill was gushing, as if it had been smitten by the rod of the Prophet.

I started, and looked--a dark half--naked figure, with an enormous cap of the shaggy skin of some wild creature, was kneeling on one knee, on the very pinnacle with a carabine resting across his thigh. I noticed our guide tremble from head to foot, but he did not speak.

“Vous avez des arms?” said Bang, as he continued with great fluency, but little grammar; “ayez le bonte de cockez votre pistolettes?”

The man gave no answer. We heard the click of the carabine lock.

“Zounds!” said Aaron, with his usual energy when excited, “if you won’t use them, give them to me;” and forthwith he snatched both pistols from our guide’s holsters. “Now, Tom, get on. Shove t’other blackie a-head of you, Pegtop, will you? Confound you for forgetting my Mantons, you villain. I will bring up the rear.”

“Well, I will get on,” said I. “but here, give me a pistol.”

“Ridez vous en avant, blackimoribus ambos--en avant, you black rascals laissez le Capitan and me pour fightez”--shouted Bang, as the black guide, guessing his meaning, spurred his horse against the moonlight bank.

“Ah--ah!” exclaimed the man, as he wheeled about after he had ridden a pace or two under the shadow of the trees--“Voila ces autres brigands la.”

“Where?” said I.

“There,” said the man in an ecstasy of fear--“there”--and peering up into the forest, where the checkering dancing moonlight was flickering on the dun, herbless soil, as the gentle night-breeze made the leaves of the trees twinkle to and fro, I saw three dark figures advancing upon us.

“Here’s a catastrophe, Tom, my boy” quoth Aaron, who, now that he had satisfied himself that the pistols were properly loaded and primed, had resumed all his wonted coolness in danger. “Ask that fellow who is enacting the statue on the top of the rock what he wants. I am a tolerable shot, you know; and if he means evil, I shall nick him before he can carry his carabine to his shoulder, take my word for it.”

“Who is there, and what do you want?” No answer, the man above us continued as still as if he had actually been a statue of bronze. Presently one of the three men in the wood sounded a short snorting note on a bullock’s horn.

It would seem that until this moment their comrade above us had not been aware of their vicinity, for he immediately called out in the patois of St Domingo, “advance, and seize the travellers;” and thereupon was in the act of raising his piece to his shoulder, when crack--Bang tired his pistol. The man uttered a loud hah, but did not fall.

“Missed him, by all that is wonderful!” said my companion. “Now, Tom, it is your turn.”

I levelled, and was in the very act of pulling the trigger, when the dark figure fell over slowly and stiffly on his back, and then began to struggle violently, and to cough loudly, as if he were suffocating. At length he rolled over and down the face of the rock, where he was caught by a strong clump of brushwood, and there he hung, while the coughing and crowing increased, and I felt a warm shower, as of heated water, sputter over my face. It was hot hot and salt--God of my fathers! it was blood. But there was no time for consideration; the three figures by this had been reinforced by six more, and they now, with a most fiendish yell, jumped down into the hollow basin, and surrounded us.

“Lay down your arms,” one of them shouted.

“No,” I exclaimed; “we are British officers, and armed, and determined to sell our lives dearly; and if you do succeed in murdering us, you may rest assured you shall be hunted down by bloodhounds.”

I thought the game was up, and little dreamed that the name of Briton would, amongst the fastnesses of Haiti, have proved a talisman; but it did so. “We have no wish to injure you, but you must follow us, and see our general,” said the man who appeared to take the lead amongst them. Here two of the men scrambled up the face of the rock, and brought their wounded comrade down from where he hung, and laid him on the bank; he had been shot through the lungs, and could not speak. After a minute’s conversation, they lifted him on their shoulders; and as our guide and Monsieur Pegtop had been instantly bound, we were only two to nine armed men, and accordingly had nothing for it but to follow the bearers of the wounded man, with our horses tumbling and scrambling up the river course, into which, by their order, we had now turned.

We proceeded in this way for about half a mile, when it was evident that the jaded beasts could not travel farther amongst the twisted trunks of trees and fragments of rock with which the river-course was now strewed. We therefore dismounted, and were compelled to leave them in charge of two of the brigands, and immediately began to scramble up the hill-side, through a narrow footpath, in one of the otherwise most impervious thickets that I had ever seen. Presently a black savage, half-naked like his companions, hailed, and told us to stand. Some password that we could not understand was given by our captors, and we proceeded, still ascending, until, turning sharp off to the left, we came suddenly round a pinnacle of rock, and looked down into a deep dell, with a winding path leading to the brink of it. It was a round cockpit of a place, surrounded with precipitous limestone-rocks on all sides, from the fissures of which large trees and bushes sprung, while the bottom was a level piece of ground, covered with long hay-like grass, evidently much trodden down. Close to the high bank, right opposite, and about thirty yards from us, a wood-fire was sparkling cheerily against the grey rock; while, on the side next us, the roofs of several huts were visible, but there was no one moving about that we could see. The moment, however, that the man with the horn sounded a rough and most unmelodious blast, there was a buzz and a stir below, and many a short grunt arose out of the pit, and long yawns, and eigh, eighs! while a dozen splinters of resinous wood were instantly lit, and held aloft, by whose light I saw fifty or sixty half-naked, but well armed blacks, gazing up at us from beneath, their white eyes and whiter teeth glancing. Most of them had muskets and long knives, and several wore the military shake, while others had their heads bound round with the never-failing handkerchief. At length a fierce-looking fellow, dressed in short drawers, a round blue jacket, a pair of epaulets, and a most enormous cocked hat, placed a sort of rough ladder, a prank with notches cut in it with a hatchet, against the bank next us, and in a loud voice desired us to descend. I did so with fear and trembling, but Mr Bang never lost his presence of mind for a moment; and, in answer to the black chief’s questions, I again rested our plea on our being British officers, despatched on service from a squadron (and as I used the word, the poor little Wave and solitary corvette rose up before me) across the island to Jacmel, to communicate with another British force lying there. The man heard me with great patience; but when I looked round the circle of tatterdemalions, for there was ne’er a shirt in the whole company--Falstaff’s men were a joke to them--with their bright arms sparkling to the red glare of the torches, that flared like tongues of flame overhead, while they grinned with their ivory teeth, and glared fiercely with their white eyeballs on us--I felt that our lives were not worth an hour’s purchase.

At length the leader spoke--“I am General Sanchez, driven to dispute President Petion’s sway by his injustice to me--but I trust our quarrel is not hopeless; will you, gentlemen, on your return to Port-au-Prince, use your influence with him to withdraw his decree against me?”

This was so much out of the way the idea of our being deputed to mediate between such great personages as President Petion and one of his rebel generals, was altogether so absurd, that, under other circumstances, I would have laughed in the black fellow’s face. However, a jest here might have cost us our lives; so we looked serious, and promised.

“Upon your honours”--said the poor fellow.

“Upon our words of honour”--we rejoined.

“Then embrace me”--and the savage thereupon, stinking of tobacco and cocoa-nut oil, hugged me, and kissed me on both cheeks, and then did the agreeable in a similar way to Mr Bang. Here the coughing and moaning of the wounded man broke in upon the conference.

“What is that?” said Sanchez. One of his people told him. “Ah!” said he, with a good deal of savageness in his tone--“A--ha! blood?”

We promptly explained how it happened;--for a few moments, I did not know how he might take it.

“But I forgive you,” at length said he--“however, my men may revenge their comrade. You must drink and eat with them.”

This was said aside to us, as it were. He ordered some roasted plantains to be brought, and mixed some cruel bad tafia with water in an enormous gourd. He ate, and then took a pull himself we followed,--and he then walked round the circle, and carefully observed that every one had tasted also. Being satisfied on this head, he abruptly ordered us to ascend the ladder, and to pass on our way.

The poor fellow was mad, I believe. However, some time afterwards, the President hunted him down, and got hold of him, but I believe he never punished him. As for the wounded man, whether he did live or die, Tom Cringle does not know.

We were reconducted by our former escort to where we left our horses, remounted, and without farther let or hinderance arrived by day dawn at the straggling town of Jacmel. The situation is very beautiful, the town being built on the hillside, looking out seaward on a very safe roadstead, the anchorage being defended to the southward by bright blue shoals, and white breakers, that curl and roar over the coral reefs and ledges. As we rode up to Mr S----‘s, the principal merchant in the place, and a Frenchman, we were again struck with the dilapidated condition of the houses, and the generally ruinous state of the town. The brown and black population appeared to be lounging about in the most absolute idleness; and here, as at Port-au-Prince, every second man you met was a soldier. The women sitting in their little shops, nicely set out with a variety of gay printed goods, and the crews of the English vessels loading coffee, were the only individuals who seemed to be capable of any exertion.

“I say, Tom,” quoth Massa Aaron, “do you see that old fellow there?”

“What? that old grey-headed negro sitting in the arbour there?”

“Yes--the patriarch is sitting under the shadow of his own Lima bean.”

And so in very truth he was. The stem was three inches in diameter, and the branches had been trained along and over a sparred arch, and were loaded with pods.

“I shall believe in the story of Jack and the Beanstalk, henceforth and for ever,” said I.

We were most kindly entertained by Mr S----, and spent two or three days very happily. The evening of the day on which we arrived, we had strolled out about nine o’clock to take the air--our host and his clerks being busy in the counting-house--and were on our way home, when we looked in on them at their desks, before ascending to the apartments above. There were five clerks and Mr S----, all working away on the top of their tall mahogany tripods, by the light of their brown home-made wax candles, while three masters of merchantmen were sitting in a corner, comparing bills of lading, making up manifests, and I do not know what beside.

“It is now about time to close,” said Mr S----; “have you any objection to a little music, gentlemen? or are you too much fatigued?”

“Music--music,” said Mr Bang, “I delight in good music, but”--He was cut short by the whole bunch, the clerks and their master, closing their ledgers, and journals, and day-books, and cashbooks with a bang, while one hooked up a fiddle, another a clarionet, another a flute, &c, while Mr S----offered, with a smile, his own clarionet to Massa Aaron, and holding out at the same time, with the true good-breeding of a Frenchman, a span-new reed. To my unutterable surprise he took it sucked in his lips--wet the reed in his mouth; then passing his hand across his muzzle, coolly asked Mr S----what the piece was to be? “Adeste fideles, if you please,” said S----, rather taken aback. Mr Bang nodded--sounded a bar or two gave another very scientific flourish, and then calmly awaited the opening. He then tendered a fiddle to me altogether beyond my compass--but I offered to officiate on the kettledrum, the drummer being competent to something else. At a signal from our host away they all launched in full crash, and very melodious it was too, let me tell you, Aaron’s instrument telling most famously.

The next day we went to visit a tafia property in the neighbourhood. On our way we passed a dozen miserable-looking blacks, cleaning canes, followed by an ugly Turk of a brown man, almost naked, with the omnipresent glazed cocked-hat, and a drawn cutlass in his hand. He was abusing the poor devils most lustily as we rode along, and stood so pertinaciously in the path, that I could not for the life of me pass without jostling him. “Le vous demands pardon,” said I, with a most abject salaam to my saddle-bow. He knit his brows and shut his teeth hard, as he ground out between the glancing ivory, “Sacre!--voila ces foutres blancs la,”--clutching the hilt of his couteau firmly all the while. I thought he would have struck me. But Mr S----coming up, mollified the savage, and we rode on.

The tafia estate was a sore affair. It had once been a prosperous sugar plantation, as the broken panes and ruined houses, blackened by fire, were melancholy vouchers for; but now the whole cultivation was reduced to about a couple of acres of wiry sugar canes, and the boiling and distilling was carried on in a small unroofed nook of the original works.

Two days after this we returned to Port-au-Prince, and I could not help admiring the justness of Aaron’s former description; for noisome exhalations were rising thick, as the evening sun shone hot and sickly on the long bank of fat black mud that covers the beach beneath the town. We found Captain Transom at Mr S----‘s. I made my report of the state of the merchantmen loading on the south side of the island, and returned to rest, deucedly tired and stiff with my ride. Next morning Bang entered my room.

“Hillo, Tom--the skipper has been shouting for you this half hour--get up, man--get up.”

“My dear sir, I am awfully tired.”

“Oh!” sung Bang--“‘I have a silent sorrow here’ eh?”

It was true enough; no sailor rides seventy miles on end with impunity. That same evening we bid adieu to our excellent host Mr S----, and the rising moon shone on us under weigh for Kingston, where two days after we safely anchored with the homeward bound trade. “The roaring seas Is not a place of ease,” says a Point ditty. No more is the command of a small schooner in the West Indies. We had scarcely anchored, when the boarding officer from the flag-ship brought me a message to repair thither immediately. I did so. As I stepped on deck, the lieutenant was leaning on the drumhead of the capstan, with the signal-book open before him, while the signal-man was telling off the semaphore, which was rattling away at the Admiral’s pen, situated about five miles off.

“Ah! Cringle,” said he, without turning his head, “how are you? glad to see you--wish you joy, my lad. Here, lend me a hand, will you? it concerns you.” I took the book, and as the man reported, I pieced the following comfortable sentence together.

“Desire--Wave--fit--wood--water--instantly--to take convoy to Spanish Main--to-morrow morning--Mr Cringle--remain on board--orders will be sent--evening.”

“Heigh ho, says Rowley,” sang I Thomas, in great wrath and bitterness of spirit. “D----d hard--am I a duck, to live in the water altogether, entirely?”

“Tom, my boy,” sung out a voice from the water. It was Aaron Bang’s, who, along with Transom, had seen me go on board the receiving ship. “Come along, man--come along--Transom is going to make interest to get you a furlough on shore; so come along, and dine with us in Kingston.”

“I am ordered to sea to-morrow morning, my dear sir,” said I, like to cry.--“No!”--“Too true, too true.” So no help for it, I took a sad farewell of my friends, received my orders, laid in my provisions and water, hauled out into the fairway, and sailed for Santa Martha next morning at daybreak, with three merchant schooners under convoy one for Santa Martha--another for Carthagena--and the third for Porto-Bello.

We sailed on the 24th of such a month, and, after a pleasant passage, anchored at Santa Martha, at 8 AM, on the 31st. When we came to anchor, we saluted, which seemed to have been a somewhat unexpected honour, as the return was fired from the fort after a most primitive fashion. A black fellow appeared with a shovel of live embers, one of which another sans culotte caught up in his hand, chucking it from one palm to another, until he ran to the breech of the first gun, where, clapping it on the touch-hole, he fired it off, and so on seriatim, through the whole battery, until the required number of guns were given, several of which, by the by, were shotted, as we could hear the balls whiz overhead. The town lies on a small plain, at the foot of very high mountains, or rather on a sand-bank, formed from the washings from these mountains. The summit of the highest of them, we could see from the deck, was covered with snow, which at sunrise, in the clear light of the cool grey dawn, shone, when struck by the first rays of the sun, like one entire amethyst. Oh, how often I longed for the wings of the eagle, to waft me from the hot deck of the little vessel, where the thermometer in the shade stood at 95, far up amongst the shining glaciers, to be comforted with cold!

One striking natural phenomenon is exhibited here, arising out of the vicinity of this stupendous prong of the Cordilleras. The sea breeze blows into the harbour all day, but in the night, or rather towards morning, the cold air from the high regions rushes down, and blows with such violence off the land, that my convoy and myself were nearly blown out to sea the first night after we arrived; and it was only by following the practice of the native craft, and anchoring close under the lee of the beach--in fact, by having an anchor high and dry on the shore itself--the player, as the Spaniards call it--that we could count on riding through the night with security or comfort.

There are several small islands at the entrance of the harbour, on the highest of which is a fort, that might easily be rendered impregnable; it commands both the town and harbour. The place itself deserves little notice; the houses are mean, and interspersed with negro huts, but there is one fine church, with several tolerable paintings in it. One struck me as especially grotesque, although I had often seen queer things in Roman Catholic churches in Europe. It was a representation of Hell, with Old Nicholas, under the guise of a dragon, entertaining himself with the soul of an unfortunate heretic in his claws, who certainly appeared far from comfortable; while a lot of his angels were washing the sins off a set of fine young men, as you would the dirt off scabbit potatoes, in a sea of liquid fire. But their saints!--I often rejoiced that Aaron Bang was not with me; we should unquestionably have quarrelled; for as to the manner in which they were dressed and decorated, the most fantastic mode a girl ever did up her doll in, was a joke to it. Still these wooden deities are treated with such veneration; that I do believe their ornaments, which are of massive gold and silver, are never, or very rarely, stolen.

On the evening of the 2nd of the following month we sailed again, but having been baffled by calms and light winds, it was the 4th before we anchored off the St Domingo gate at Carthagena, and next morning we dropped down to Boca Chica, and saw our charge, a fine dashing schooner of 150 tons, safe into the harbour. About 9 AM, we had weighed, but we had scarcely got the anchor catted, when it came on to blow great guns from the northwester most unusual thing hereabouts--so it was down anchor again; and as I had made up my mind not to attempt it again before morning, I got the gig in the water with all convenient speed; and that same forenoon I reached the town, and immediately called on the Viceroy, but under very different circumstances from the time Mr Splinter and I had entered it along with the conquering army.

We dined with the magnate, and found a very large party assembled. Amongst others, I especially recollect that the Inquisidor--General was conspicuous; but every one, with the exception of the Captain General and his immediate staff, was arrayed in gingham jackets; so there was not much style in the affair.

I had before dinner an opportunity to inspect the works of Carthagena at my leisure. It is unquestionably a very strong place, the walls, which are built of solid masonry, being armed with at least three hundred pieces of brass cannon, while the continued ebb and flow of the tide in the ditch creates a current so strong, that it would be next to impossible to fill it up, as fascines would be carried away by the current--so that, were the walls even breached, it would be impracticable to storm them. The appearance of Carthagena from the sea, that is, from a vessel anchored off the St Domingo gate, is very beautiful, and picturesque. It is situated on a sandy island, or rather a group of islands; and the beach here shoals so gradually, that boats of even very small draught of water cannot approach within musket-shot. The walls and numerous batteries have a very commanding appearance. The spires and towers on the churches are numerous, and many of them were decorated with flags when we were there; and the green trees shooting up amidst the red-tiled houses afforded a beautiful relief to the prospect. A little behind the town, on a gentle acclivity, is the citadel, or fort San Felipe, whose appearance conveys an idea of impregnable strength; (but all this sort of thing, is it not written in Roderick Random?) and on the ship like hill beyond it, the only other eminence in the neighbourhood, stands the convent of the Popa, like a poop lantern on the high stern of a ship, from which indeed it takes its name. This convent had been strongly fortified; and, commanding San Felipe, was of great use to Morillo, who carried it by assault during the siege, and held it until the insurgents shelled him out from the citadel. The effect, when I first saw it, was increased by the whole scene--city, and batteries, and Popa--being reflected in the calm smooth sea, as distinctly as if it had been glass; so clear, in fact, was the reflection, that you could scarcely distinguish the shadow from the reality. We weighed next morning--that is on the sixth of the month, and arrived safe at Porto-Bello on the 11th, after a tedious passage, during which we had continual rains, accompanied with vivid lightning and tremendous thunder. I had expected to have fallen in with one of our frigates here; but I afterwards learned that, although I had slid down cheerily along shore, the weather current that prevailed farther out at sea had swept her away to the eastward; so I ran in and anchored, and immediately waited on the Governor, who received me in what might once have been a barn, although it did not now deserve the name.

Porto--Bello was originally called Nombre de Dios, having received the former name from the English when we took it. It is a miserable, dirty, damp hole, surrounded by high forest-clad hills, round which everlasting mists curl and obscure the sun, whose rays, at any chance moment when they do reach the steamy swamp on which it is built or the waters of the lead-coloured, land-locked cove that constitutes the harbour, immediately exhale the thick sickly moisture, in clouds of sluggish white vapours, smelling diabolically of decayed vegetables, and slime, and mud. I will venture a remark that will be found, I am persuaded, pretty near the truth, that there were twenty carrion crows to be seen in the streets for every inhabitant--the people seem every way worthy of such an abode, saffron, dingy, miserable, emaciated looking devils. As for the place itself, it appeared to my eyes one large hospital, inhabited by patients in the yellow fever. During the whole of the following day, there was still no appearance of the frigate, and I had in consequence now to execute the ulterior part of my orders, which were, that if I did not find her at anchor when I arrived, or if she did not make her appearance within forty eight hours thereafter, I was myself to leave the Wave in Porto--Bello, and proceed overland across the isthmus to Panama, and to deliver, on board of H. M. S. Bandera, into the Captain’s own hands, a large packet with despatches from the Government at home, as I understood, of great importance, touching the conduct of our squadron, with reference to the vagaries of some of the mushroom American Republics on the Pacific. But if I fell in with the frigate, then I was to deliver the said packet to the Captain, and return immediately in the Wave to Port Royal.

Having, therefore, obtained letters from the Governor of Porto--Bello to the Commandant at Chagres, I chartered a canoe with four stout canoemen and a steersman, or patron, as he is called, to convey me to Cruzes; and having laid in a good stock of eatables and drinkables, and selected the black pilot, Peter Mangrove, to go as my servant, accompanied by his never-failing companion, Sneezer, and taking my hammock and double barrelled gun, and a brace of pistols with me, we shoved off at Six A.M. on the morning of the 14th.

It was a rum sort of conveyance this said canoe of mine. In the first place, it was near forty feet long, and only five broad at the broadest, being hollowed out of one single wild cotton-tree; how this was to be pulled through the sea on the coast, by four men, I could not divine. However, I was assured by the old thief who chartered it to me, that it would be all right; whereas, had my innocence not been imposed on, I might, in a caiuco, or smaller canoe, have made the passage in one half the time it took me.

About ten feet of the after part was thatched with palm leaves, over a framework of broad ash hoops; which awning, called the toldo, was open both towards the steersman that guided us with a long broad-bladed paddle in the stern, and in the direction of the men forward, who, on starting, stripped themselves stark naked, and, giving a loud yell every now and then, began to pull their oars, or long paddles, after a most extraordinary fashion. First, when they lay back to the strain, they jumped backwards and upwards on to the thwart with their feet, and then, as they once more feathered their paddles again, they came crack down on their bottoms with a loud skelp on the seats, upon which they again mounted at the next stroke, and so on.

When we cleared the harbour it was fine and serene, but about noon it came on to blow violently from the northeast. All this while we were coasting it along about pistol-shot from the white coral beach, with the clear light green swell on our right hand, and beyond it the dark and stormy waters of the blue rolling ocean; and the snow-white roaring surf on our left. By the time I speak of, the swell had been lashed up into breaking waves, and after shipping more salt water than I had bargained for, we were obliged, about four PM, to shove into a cove within the reef, called Naranja.

Along this part of the coast there is a chain of salt-water lagoons, divided from the sea by the coral beach, the crest of which is covered here and there with clumps of stunted mangroves.

This beach, strangely enough, is higher than the land immediately behind it, as if it had been a dike, or natural breakwater, thrown up by the sea. Every here and there, there were gaps in this natural dike, and it was through one of these we shoved, and soon swung to our grapnel in perfect security, but in a most outlandish situation certainly.

As we rode to the easterly breeze, there was the beach as described, almost level with the water, on our left hand, the land or lee side of it covered with most beautiful white sand and shells, with whole warrens of land-crabs running out and in their holes like little rabbits, their tiny green bodies seeming to roll up and down, for I was not near enough to see their feet, or the mode of their locomotion, like bushels of grapeshot trundling all about on the shining white shore. Beyond, the roaring surf was flashing up over the clumps of green bushes, and thundering on the seaward face. On the right hand, ahead of us, and astern of us, the prospect was shut in by impervious thickets of mangroves, while in the distance the blue hills rose glimmering and indistinct, as seen through the steamy atmosphere. We were anchored in a stripe of clear water, about three hundred yards long by fifty broad. There, was a clear space abeam of us landward, of about half an acre in extent, on which was built a solitary Indian hut close to the water’s edge, with a small canoe drawn up close to the door. We had not been long at anchor when the canoe was launched, and a monkey--looking naked old man paddled off, and brought us a most beautiful chicken turtle, some yams, and a few oranges. I asked him his price. He rejoined, “Por amor de Dios”--that it was his saint’s day, and he meant it as a gift. However, he did not refuse a dollar when tendered to him before he paddled away.

That night, when we were all at supper, master and men, I heard and felt a sharp crack against the side of the canoe. “Hillo, Peter, what is that?” said I.

“Nothing, sir,” quoth Peter, who was enjoying his scraps abaft, with the headman, patron, or whatever you may call him, of my crew. There was a blazing fire kindled on a bed of white sand, forward in the bow of the canoe, round which the four bogas, or canoemen, were seated, with three sticks stuck up triangularly over the fire, from which depended an earthen pot, in which they were cooking their suppers.

I had rigged my hammock between the foremost and aftermost hoops of the toldo, and as I was fatigued and sleepy, and it was now getting late, I desired to betake myself to rest; so I was just flirting with a piece of ham, preparatory to the cold grog, when I again felt a similar thump and rattle against the side of the canoe. There was a small aperture in the palm thatch, right opposite to where I was sitting, on the outside of which I now heard a rustling noise, and presently a long snout was thrust through, and into the canoe, which kept opening and shutting with a sharp rattling noise. It was more like two long splinters of mud covered and half-decayed timber, than any thing I can compare it to; but as the lower jaw was opened, like a pair of Brobdignag scissors, a formidable row of teeth was unmasked, the snout from the tip to the eyes being nearly three feet long. The scene at this moment was exceedingly good, as seen by the light of a small, bright, silver lamp, fed with spirits of wine, that I always travelled with, which hung from one of the hoops of the toldo. First, there was our friend Peter Mangrove, cowering in a corner under the after part of the awning, covered up with a blanket, and shaken as if with an ague-fit, with the patron peering over his shoulder, no less alarmed. Sneezer, the dog, was sitting on end, with his black nose resting on the table, waiting patiently for his crumbs; and the black boatmen were forward in the bow of the canoe, jabbering, and laughing, and munching, as they clustered round a sparkling fire. When I first saw the apparition of the diabolical looking snout, I was in a manner fascinated, and could neither speak nor move. Mangrove and the patron were also paralysed with fear, and the others did not see it; so Sneezer was the only creature amongst us, aware of the danger, who seemed to have his wits about him, for the instant he noticed it, he calmly lifted his nose off the table, and gave a short startled bark, and then crouched and drew himself back as if in the act to spring, glancing his eyes from the monstrous jaws to my face, and nuzzling and whining with a laughing expression, and giving a small yelp now and then, and again riveting his eyes with intense earnestness on the alligator, telling me as plainly as if he had spoken it--“If you choose, master, I will attack it, as in duty bound, but really such a customer is not at all in my way.” And not only did he say this, but he shewed his intellect was clear, and no way warped through fear, for he now stood on his hind legs, and holding on the hammock with his fore paws, he thrust his snout below the pillow, and pulled out one of my pistols, which always garnished the head of my bed, on such expeditions as the present.

My presence of mind returned at witnessing the courage and sagacity of my noble dog. I seized the loaded pistol, and as by this time the eyes of the alligator were inside of the toldo, I clapped the muzzle to the larboard one, and fired. The creature jerked back so suddenly and convulsively, that part of the toldo was tom away: and as the dead monster fell off, the canoe rolled as if in a seaway. My crew shouted “Que es esto?” Peter Mangrove cheered--Sneezer barked and yelled at a glorious rate, and could scarcely be held in the canoe--and looking overboard, we saw the monster, twelve feet long at least, upturn his white belly to the rising moon, struggle for a moment with his short paws, and after a solitary heavy lash of his scaly tale, he floated away astern of us, dead and still. To proceed poor Peter Mangrove, whose nerves were consumedly shaken by this interlude, was seized during the night with a roasting fever, brought on in a great measure, I believe, by fear, at finding himself so far out of his latitude; and that he had grievous doubts as to the issue of our voyage, and as to where we were bound for, was abundantly evident. I dosed him most copiously with salt water, a very cooling medicine, and no lack of it at hand.

We weighed at grey dawn, on the morning of the 15th, and at 11 o’clock, AM arrived at Chagres, a more miserable place, were that credible, even than Porto--Bello. The eastern side of the harbour is formed by a small promontory that runs out into the sea about five hundred yards, with a bright little bay to windward; while a long muddy mangrove-covered spit forms the right hand bank as you enter the mouth or estuary of the river Chagres on the west. The easternmost bluff is a narrow saddle, with a fort erected on the extreme point facing the sea, which, so far as situation is concerned, is, or ought to be, impregnable, the rock being precipitous on three faces, while it is cut off to landward by a deep dry ditch, about thirty feet wide, across which a movable drawbridge is let down, and this compartment of the defences is all very regular, with scarp and counterscarp, covered--way and glacis. The brass guns mounted on the castle were numerous and beautiful, but every thing was in miserable disrepair; several of the guns, for instance, had settled down bodily on the platform, having fallen through the crushed rotten carriages. I found an efficient garrison in this stronghold of three old negroes, who had not even a musket of any kind, but the commandant was not in the castle when I paid my visit; however, one of the invincibles undertook to pilot me to El Senor Torre’s house, where his honour was dining. The best house in the place this was, by the by, although only a thatched hut; and here I found his Excellency the Commandant, a little shrivelled insignificant-looking creature. He was about sitting down to his dinner, of which he invited me to partake, and as I was very hungry, I contrived to do justice to the first dish, but my stomach was grievously offended at the second, which seemed to me to be a compound of garlic, brick dust, and train oil, so that I was glad to hurry on board of my canoe, to settle all with a little good Madeira.

At four P.m. I proceeded up the river, which is here about a hundred yards across, and very deep; it rolls sluggishly along through a low swampy country, covered to the water’s edge with thick sedges and underwood, below which the water stagnates, and generates myriads of musquittoes, and other troublesome insects, and sends up whole clouds of noxious vapours, redolent of yellow fever, and ague, and cramps, and all manner of comfortable things.

At ten P.M. we anchored by a grapnel in the stream, and I set Peter Mangrove forthwith to officiate in his new capacity of cook, and really he made a deuced good one. I then slung my hammock under the toldo, and lighting a slow match, at the end of it forwards, to smoke away the musquittoes, having previously covered the aftermost end with a mat, I wrapped myself in my cloak, and turned in to take my snooze. We weighed again about two in the morning. As the day dawned the dull grey steamy clouds settled down on us once more, while the rain fell in a regular waterspout. It was anything but a cheering prospect to look along the dreary vistas of the dull brimful Lethe-like stream, with nothing to be seen but the heavy lowering sky above, the red swollen water beneath, and the gigantic trees high towering overhead, and growing close to the water’s edge, laced together with black snake-like withes, while the jungle was thick and impervious, and actually grew down into the water, for beach, or shore, or cleared bank, there was none,--all water and underwood, except where a heavy soft slimy steaming black bank of mud hove its shining back from out the dead waters near the shore, with one or more monstrous alligators sleeping on it, like dirty rotten logs of wood, scarcely deigning to lift their abominable long snouts to look at us as we passed, or to raise their long scaly tails, with the black mud sticking to the scales in great lumps--oh--horrible--most horrible! But the creatures, although no beauties certainly, are harmless after all. For instance, I never heard a well-authenticated case of their attacking a human being hereabouts; pigs and fowls they do tithe, however, like any parson. I don’t mean to say that they would not make free with a little fat dumpling of a piccaniny, if he were thrown to them, but they seem to have no ferocious propensities. I shot one of them; he was about twelve feet long; the bullet entered in the joints of the mail, below the shoulder of the fore paw, where the hide was tender; but if you fire at them with the scale, that is, with the monster looking at you, a musket ball will glance. I have often in this my log spoken of the Brobdignag lizards, the guanas. I brought down one this day, about three feet long, and found it, notwithstanding its dragon like appearance, very good eating. At eleven AM on the 18th, we arrived at the village of Cruzes, the point where the river ceases to be navigable for canoes, and from whence you take horse, or rather mule, for Panama. For about fifteen or twenty miles below Cruzes, the river becomes rapid, and full of shoals, when the oars are laid aside, and the canoes are propelled by long poles.

The Town, as it is called, is a poor miserable place, composed chiefly of negro huts; however, a Spanish trader of the name of Villaverde, who had come over in the Wave as a passenger, and had preceded me in a lighter canoe, and to whom I had shown some kindness, now repaid it, as far as lay in his power.

He lodged me for the night, and hired mules for me to proceed to Panama in the morning; so I slung my hammock in an old Spanish soldier’s house, who keeps a kind of posada, and was called by my friend Villaverde at daydawn, whose object was, not to tell me to get ready for my journey, but to ask me if I would go and bathe before starting. Rather a rum sort of request, it struck me; nevertheless, a purification, after the many disagreeables I had endured, could not come amiss; and slipping on my trowsers, and casting my cloak on my shoulders, away we trudged to a very beautiful spot, about a mile above Cruzes, where, to my surprise, I found a score of Crusafios, all Altering in the water, puffing and blowing and shouting. Now an alligator might pick and choose, thought I; however, no one seemed in the least afraid, so I dashed amongst them. Presently, about pistol-shot from us, a group of females appeared. Come, thought I, rather too much for a modest young man this too; and deuce take me, as I am a gentleman, if the whole bevy did not disrobe in cold blood, and squatter, naked as their mother Eve was in the garden of Eden, before she took to the herbage, right into the middle of the stream, skirting and laughing, as if not even a male musquitto had been within twenty miles. However, my neighbour took no notice of them; it seemed all a matter of course. But let that pass. About eight o’clock A.M. I got under weigh, with Peter Mangrove, on two good stout mules, and a black guide running before me with a long stick, with which he sprung over the sloughs and stones in the road with great agility; I would have backed him against many a passable hunter, to do four miles over a close country in a steeple-chase.

Panama is distant from Cruzes about seven leagues. The road is somewhat like what the Highland ones must have been before General Wade took them in hand, and only passable for mules; indeed, in many places where it had been hewn out of the rock in zigzags on the face of the hill, it is scarcely passable for two persons meeting. But the scenery on each side is very beautiful, as it winds, for the most part, amongst steep rocks, over shadowed by magnificent trees, amongst which birds of all sizes, and of the most beautiful plumage, are perpetually glancing, while a monkey, every here and there, would sit grimacing, and chattering, and scratching himself in the cleft of a tree.

I should think, judging from my barometer--but I may have made an inaccurate calculation, and I have not Humboldt by me--that the ridge of the highest is fifteen hundred feet above the level of the sea, so that it would be next to impossible to join the two seas at this point by a canal with water in it. However, I expect to see a joint Stock Company set a-going some fine day yet for the purpose of cutting it, that is, when the national capital next accumulates (and Lord knows when that will be) to a plethora, and people’s purses become so distended that they require bleeding.

After travelling about twenty miles, the scene gradually opens, and one begins to dream about Vasco Nunez and the enthusiastic first explorers of the Isthmus; but my first view of the Pacific was through a drenching shower of rain, that wet me to the skin, and rather kept my imagination under, for this said imagination of mine is like a barn-door chuckey brisk and crouse enough when the sun shines, and the sky is blue, and plenty of grub at hand, but I can’t write poetry when I am could, and hungry, and drooked. Still, when I caught my first glimpse of the distant Pacific, I felt that, even through a miserable drizzle, it was a noble prospect.

As you proceed, you occasionally pass through small open savannahs, which become larger, and the clear spaces wider, until the forest you have been travelling under gradually breaks into beautiful clumps of trees, like those in a gentleman’s park, and every here and there a placid clear piece of water spreads out, full of pond turtle, which I believe to be one and the same with the tortoise, and eels; the latter of which, by the by, are very sociable creatures, for in the clear moonlight nights, with the bright sparkling dew on the short moist grass, they frequently travel from one pond to another, wriggling along the grass like snakes. I have myself found them fifty yards from the water; but whether the errand was love or war, or merely to drink tea with some of the slippery young females in the next pool, and then return again, the deponent sayeth not.

As you approach the town, the open spaces before-mentioned become more frequent, until at length you gain a rising ground, about three miles from Panama, where, as the sun again shone out, the view became truly enchanting.

There lay the town of Panama, built on a small tongue of land, jutting into the Pacific, surrounded by walls, which might have been a formidable defence once, but I wish my promotion depended on my rattling the old bricks and stones about their ears, with one single frigate, if I could only get near enough; but in the impossibility of this lies the strength of the place, as the water shoals so gradually, that the tide retires nearly a mile and a half from the walls, rising, I consider, near eighteen feet at the springs, while, on the opposite side of the Isthmus, at Chagres for instance, there is scarcely any at all, the gulf stream neutralizing it almost entirely.

On the right hand a hill overhangs the town, rising precipitously to the height of a thousand feet or thereabouts, on the extreme pinnacle of which is erected a signal station, called the Vigia, which, at the instant I saw it, was telegraphing to some craft out at sea. As for the city, to assume our friend Mr Bang’s mode of description, it was shaped like a tadpole, the body representing the city, and the suburb the tail; or a stewpan, the city and its fortifications being the pan, while the handle, tending obliquely towards us, was the Raval, or long street, extending Savannahward, without the walls. At the distance from which we viewed it, the red-tiled houses, cathedral, with its towers, and the numerous monasteries and nunneries, seemed girt in with a white ribbon, while a series of black spots here and there denoted the cannon on the batteries. To the left of the town, there was a whole flotilla of small craft, brigs, schooners, and vegetable boats; while farther out at sea, beyond the fortifications, three large ships rode at anchor; and beyond them again, the beautiful group of islands lying about five miles off the town, appeared to float on and were reflected in the calm, glasslike expanse of the Pacific, like emeralds chased in silver, while the ocean itself, towards the horizon, seemed to rise up like a scene in a theatre, or a burnished bright silver wall, growing more and more blue, and hazy and indistinct, as it ascended, until it melted into the cloudless heaven, so that no one could tell where water and sky met.

“Thou glorious mirror, in all time, Calm or convulsed--in breeze, or gale, or storm, Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime Dark heaving boundless, endless, and sublime, The image of Eternity--the throne Of the Invisible.”

While a sperm whale every now and then rose between us and the islands, and spouted up a high double jet into the air, like a blast of steam, and then, with a heavy flounder of his broad tail, slowly sank again; and a boat here and there glided athwart the scene, and a sleepy sail arose with a slow motion and a fitful rattle, and a greasy cheep, on the mast of some vessel, getting all ready to weigh, while small floating trails of blue smoke were streaming away astern from the tiny cabooses of the craft at anchor, and a mournful distant “yo heave oh” came booming past us on the light air, and the everlasting tinkle of the convent bells sounded cheerily, and the lowing of the kine around us called up old associations in my bosom, as I looked forth on the glorious spectacle from beneath a magnificent bower of orange-trees and shaddocks, while all manner of wild-flowers blossomed and bloomed around us.

We arrived at Panama about three PM, covered to the eyes with mud, and after some little difficulty, I found out Senor Hombrecillo Justo’s house, who received me very kindly. Next morning I waited on the Governor, made my bow and told him my errand. He was abundantly civil; professing himself ready to serve me in any way, and promising to give me the earliest intelligence of the arrival of the Bandera. I then returned to mine host’s, to whom I had strong letters of introduction from some Kingston friends.

I soon found that I had landed amongst a family of originals. Mine host was a little thin withered body, with a face that might have vied with the monkey whom the council of Aberdeen took for a sugar planter. He wore his own grey hair in a long greasy queue, and his costume, when I first saw him, was white cotton stockings, white jean small clothes and waistcoat, and a little light-blue silk coat; he wore large solid gold buckles in his shoes, and knee-buckles of the same. His voice was small and squeaking, and when heated in argument, or crossed by any member of family,--and he was very touchy--it became so shrill and indistinct that it pierced the ear without being in the least intelligible. In those paroxysms he did not walk, but sprung from place to place like a grasshopper, with unlooked-for agility, avoiding the chairs and tables and other movables with great dexterity. I often thought he would have broken whatever came in his way; but although his erratic orbit was small, he performed his evolutions with great precision and security. His general temper, however, was very kind, humane, and good-humoured, and he seldom remained long under the influence of passion. His character, both as a man and a merchant, was unimpeachable, and, indeed, proverbial in the place. His better half appeared to be some years older, and also a good deal of an original. She was a little short thick woman; but, stout as she was when I had the honour of an embrace, she must have been once much stouter, for her skin appeared from the colour and texture to have come to her at second hand, and to have originally belonged to a much larger person, for it bagged and hung in flaps about her jowls and bosom, like an ill-cut maintopsail, which sits clumsily about the clews. I think I could have reefed her with advantage, below the chin.

Her usual dress was a shift, with a whole sailroom of frills about the sleeves and bosom, and a heavy pink taffeta petticoat, (gowns being only worn by these fair ones as you put on a greatcoat, that is, when they go abroad,) and a small round apron like a flap of black silk. Over these she wore a Spanish aroba, or twenty-five pounds weight of gold chains, saints, and crucifixes, and a large black velvet patch, of the size of a wafer, on each temple, which I found, by the by, to be an ornament very much in fashion amongst the fair of Panama. Her hair, or rather the scanty remnant thereof, was plaited into two grizzled braids, with a black bow of ribbon at the end of each, and hung straight down her back. Like may excellent wives, she loved to circulate her spouse’s blood by a little well-timed opposition now and then; but she never tried her strength too far, and she always softened down in proportion as he waxed energetic, and began to accelerate his motions, so that by the time he had given one or two hops, she had either fairly given in, or moved out. They had no children, but had in a manner adopted a little black creature about four years old, which, being a female, the lady had christened by the familiar diminutive of Diablita.

Another curiosity was the maternal aunt of Don Hombrecillo, a little superannuated woman about four feet high, if she could have stood erect, but old age had long since bent her nearly double; she was on the verge of eighty-five years of age, and had outlived all her faculties. This poor old creature, in place of being respectably lodged and taken care of, was allowed to go about the house, tame, without any fixed abode so far as I could learn; nor did she always meet with that attention, I am sorry to say it, from the family, or even from the servants, that she was entitled to from her extreme helplessness. She had a droll custom of eating all her meals walking, and it was her practice to move around the dinner-table in this her dotage, and to commit pranks, that, against my will, made me laugh, and even in despite of the feelings of pity and self-humiliation that arose in my bosom at the sight of such miserable imbecility in a fellow-creature. Thus keeping on the wing as I have described, it was her practice to cruise about behind the chairs, occasionally snatching pieces of food from before the guests, so slyly, that the first intimation of her intentions was the appearance of her yellow shrivelled birdlike claw in your plate.

The brother of our host was a little stout man, but still very like Senor Justo himself. For instance, I always gloried in likening the latter to a dried prune; then, to conceive of his plump brother, imagine him boiled, and so swell out the creases in his skin, and there you have him.

This little dumpling was very asthmatic, and used to blow like a porpoise by the time he reached the top of the stairs. The only time he had ever been out of Panama was whilst he made a short visit to Lima, the wonders of which he used to chant unceasingly. But the continual cause of my annoyance--I fear I must write disgust--was the stepmother of mine host, a large fat dirty old woman. She had a pouch under her chin like a pelican, while her complexion, from the quantity of oil and foul feeding in which she delighted, was a greasy mahogany. She despised the unnatural luxuries of knives and forks, constantly devouring her meat with her fingers, whatever its consistency might be; if flesh, she tore it with both hands; if soup, she--bah! and, as the devil would have it, the venerable beauty chose to take a fancy to me. Oh, she was a balloon! I have often expected to see her rise to the roof.

These polished personages may be called Senor Justo’s family, but it was occasionally increased by various others; none of whom, however, can I heave-to to describe at present.

The day after my arrival, the operation of covering dollar boxes with wet hides had been going on in the dinner saloon the whole forenoon, which drove me forth to look about me; but I returned about half-past two, this being the hour of dinner, and found all the family, excepting mine hostess, assembled, and my appearance was the signal for dinner being ordered in. I may mention here, that this worthy family were all firmly impressed with the idea, that an Englishman was an ostrich, possessing a stomach capable of holding and digesting four times as much as any other person; and under this belief they were so outrageously kind, that I was often literally stuffed to suffocation when I first came amongst them; and when at length I resolutely refused to be immolated after this fashion, they swore I was sick, or did not like my food, which was next door to insulting them. El Senor Justo’s fat dumpling of a brother thought medical advice ought to be taken, for when he was in Lima several seamen belonging to an English whaler had died, and he had remarked, the twaddling body, that they had invariably lost their appetites previous to their dissolution.

But to return. Dinner being ordered, was promptly placed on the table, and mine host insisted on planting me at the foot thereof, while he sat on my left hand; so the party sat down; but the chair opposite, that ought to have been filled by Madama herself, was still vacant.

“Adonde esta su ama,” quoth Don Hombrecillo to one of the black waiting wenches. The girl said she did not know, but she would go and see. It is necessary to mention here that the worthy Senor’s counting-house was in a back building, separated from the house that fronted the street by a narrow court, and in a small closet off this counting-house, my quatre had been rigged the previous night, and there had my luggage been deposited. Amongst other articles in my commissariat, there was a basket with half-a-dozen of champagne, and some hock, and a bottle of brandy, that I had placed under Peter Mangrove’s care to comfort us in the wilderness. We all lay back in our chairs to wait for the lady of the house, but neither did she nor Tomassa, the name of the handmaiden who had been despatched in search of her, seem inclined to make their appearance. Don Hombrecillo became impatient.

“Josefa,”--to another of the servants--“run and desire your mistress to come here immediately.” Away she flew, but neither did this second pigeon return. Mine host now lost his temper entirely, and spluttered out, as loud as he could roar, “Somos comiendo, Panchita, somos comiendo;” and forthwith, as if in spite, he began to fork up his food, until he had nearly choked himself. Presently a short startled scream was heard from the counting-house, then a low suppressed laugh, then a loud shout, a long uproarious peal of laughter, and the two black servants came thundering across the wooden gangway or drawbridge, that connected the room where we sat with the outhouse, driven onwards by their mistress herself. They flew across the end of the dining room into the small balcony fronting the lane and began without ceremony to shout across the narrow street to a Carmelite priest, who was in a gallery of the opposite monastery, “that their mistress was possessed.”

Presently in danced our landlady, in propria persona, jumping and screaming and laughing, and snapping her fingers, and spinning round like a Turkish dervish, “mira el fandango, mira el fandangodexa me baylar, dexa me baylar--See my fandango, see my fandangolet me dance let me dance--ha, ha, ha.”

“Panchita,” screamed Justo, in extreme wrath, “tu es loco, you are mad sit down, por amor de Dios--seas decente--be decent.”

She continued gamboling about, “loven soy y virgin--I am young and a virgin--y tu Viejo diablo que queres tu,--and you, old devil, what do you want, eh?--Una virgin por Dios soy--I am young,” and seizing a boiled fowl from the dish, she let fly at her husband’s head, but missed him, fortunately; whereupon she made a regular grab at him with her paw, but he slid under the table, in all haste, roaring out,--“Ave Maria, que es esso--manda por el Padre--Send for the priest, y trae una puerco, en donde echar el demonio, manda, manda--send for a priest, and a pig, into which the demon may be cast,--send--” “Dexa me, dexa me baylar” continued the old dame--“tu no vale, Bobo viejo, you are of no use, you old blockhead--you are a forked radish, and not a man--let me catch you, let me catch you,” and here she made a second attempt, and got hold of his queue, by which she forcibly dragged him from beneath the table, until fortunately, the ribbon that tied it slid off in her hand, and the little Senor instantly ran back to this burrow, with the speed of a rabbit, while his wife sung out, “tu gastas calzones, eh? para que, damelos damelos, yo los quitare?” and if she had caught the worthy man, I believe she would really have shaken him out of his garments, peeled him on the spot, and appropriated them to herself as her threat ran. “I am a cat, a dog, and the devilhoo--hoo--hoo--let me catch you, you miserable wretch, you forked radish, and if I don’t peel off your breeches,--I shall wear them, I shall wear them,--Ave Maria.” Here she threw herself into a chair, being completely blown; but after a gasp or two, she started to her legs again, dancing and singing and snapping her fingers, as if she had held castanets between them, “Venga--Venga--dexa me baylar Dankee, Dankee la--Dankee, Dankee la--mi guitarra--mi guitarra Dankee, Dankee la--ha, ha, ha,”--and away she trundled down stairs again, where she met the priest who had been sent for, in the lower hall, who happened to be very handsome young man. Seeing the state she was in, and utterly unable to account for it, he bobbed, as she threw herself on him, eluded her embraces, and then bolted up stairs, followed by Mrs Potiphart at full speed.--“Padre, father,” cried she, “stop till I peel that forked radish there, and I will give you his breeches--Dankee, Dankee.” All this while, Don Hombrecillo was squeaking out from his lair, at the top of his pipe--“Padre, padre, trae el puerco, venga el puerco--echar el demonio--echar el demonio bring the pig, the pig, and cast out the devil.”--“Mi guitarra, canta, canta y bayle, viejo diablito, canta o yo te matarras--Bring my guitar, dance, dance and sing, you little old devil you, or I’ll murder you, dankee, dankee.”

In fine, I was at length obliged to lend a hand, and she was bodily laid hold of, and put to bed, where she soon fell into a sound sleep, and next morning awoke in her sound senses, totally unconscious of all that had passed, excepting that she remembered having taken a glass of the Englishman’s small beer.

Now the secret was out. The worthy woman, like most South American Spaniards, was distractedly fond of cervesa blanca, or small beer, and seeing the champagne bottles with their wired corks (beer requiring to be so secured in hot climates,) in my basket, she could not resist making free with a bottle, and, as I charitably concluded, small beer being a rarity in those countries, she did not find out the difference until it was made evident by the issue; however, I have it from authority, that she never afterwards ventured on any thing weaker than brandy, and from that hour, utterly eschewed that most dangerous liquor, cervesa blanca.

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XVIII. Tropical High-links

“Now, massa, pipe belay Wid your weary, weary Log, O; Peter sick of him, me say, Ah! sick more as one dog, O.”

--The Humble Petition Of Peter Mangrove, Branch Pilot.

Like all Portuguese towns, and most Spanish, Panama does not realize the idea which a stranger forms of it from the first view, as he descends from the savannah. The houses are generally built of wood, and three stories high: in the first or ground floor, are the shops; in the second, the merchants have their warehouses; and in the third, they usually live with their families. Those three different regions, sorry am I to say it, are all very dirty; indeed they may be said to be the positive, comparative, and superlative degrees of uncleanness. There are no glazed sashes in the windows, so that when it rains, and the shutters are closed, you are involved in utter darkness. The furniture is miserably scanty--some old fashioned, high backed, hardwood chairs, with a profusion of tarnished gilding; a table or two, in the same style, with a long grass hammock slung from corner to corner, intersecting the room diagonally, which, as they hang very low, about six inches only from the floor, it was not once only, that entering a house during the siesta, when the windows were darkened, I have tumbled headlong over a Don or Dofia, taking his or her forenoon nap. But if movables were scarce, there was no paucity of silver dishes; basins, spit boxes, censers, and utensils of all shapes, descriptions, and sizes, of this precious metal, were scattered about without any order or regularity, while some nameless articles, also of silver, were thrust far out of their latitude, and shone conspicuously in the very centre of the rooms. The floors were usually either of hard-wood plank, ill kept; or terraced, or tiled; some indeed were flagged with marble, but this was rare; and as for the luxury of a carpet, it was utterly unknown, the nearest approach to it being a grass mat, plaited prettily enough, called an estera. Round the walls of the house are usually hung a lot of dingy faced, worm eaten pictures of saints, and several crucifixes, which appear to be held in great veneration. The streets are paved, but exceedingly indifferently; and the frequent rains, or rather waterspouts, (and from the position of the place, between the two vast oceans of the Atlantic and Pacific, they have considerably more than their own share of moisture,) washing away the soil and sand from between the stones, render the footing for bass of all kinds extremely insecure. There are five monasteries of different orders, and a convent of nuns, within the walls, most of which, I believe, are but poorly endowed. All these have handsome churches attached to them; that of La Merced is very splendid. The cathedral is also a fine building, with some good pictures, and several lay relics of Pizarro, Almagro, and Vasco Nufiez, that riveted my attention; while their fragments of the Vera Cruz, and arrow points that had quivered in the muscles of St Sebastian, were passed by as weak inventions of the enemy.

The week after my arrival was a fast, the men eating only once in the twenty our hours, (as for the women, who the deuce can tell how often a woman eats?) and during this period all the houses were stripped of their pictures, lamps, and ornaments, to dress out the churches, which were beautifully illuminated in the evenings, while a succession of friars performed service in them continually. High mass is, even to the eye of a heretic, a very splendid ceremony; and the music in this outlandish corner was unexpectedly good, every thing considered; in the church of La Merced, especially, they had a very fine organ, and the congregation joined in the Jubilate with very good taste. By the way, in this same church, on the right of the high altar, there was a deep and lofty recess, covered with a thick black veil, in which stood concealed a figure of our Saviour, as large as life, hanging on a great cross, with the blood flowing from his wounds, and all kinds of horrible accompaniments. At a certain stage of the service, a drum was beaten by one of the brethren, upon which the veil was withdrawn, when the whole congregation prostrated themselves before the image, with every appearance of the greatest devotion. Even the passengers in the streets within ear-shot of the drum, stopped and uncovered themselves, and muttered a prayer; while the inmates of the houses knelt, and crossed themselves, with all the externals of deep humility; although, very probably, they were at the moment calculating in their minds the profits on the last adventure from Kingston. One custom particularly struck me as being very beautiful. As the night shuts in, after a noisy prelude on all the old pots in the different steeples throughout the city, there is a dead pause; presently the great bell of the cathedral tolls slowly, once or twice, at which every person stops from his employment, whatever that may be, or wherever he may be, uncovers himself, and says a short prayer--all hands remaining still and silent for a minute or more, when the great bell tolls again, and once more every thing rolls on as usual.

On the fourth evening of my residence in Panama, I had retired early to rest. My trusty knave, Peter Mangrove, and trustier still, my dog Sneezer, had both fallen asleep on the floor, at the foot of my bed, if the piece of machinery on which I lay deserved that name, when in the dead of night I was awakened by a slight noise at the door. I shook myself and listened. Presently it opened, and the old woman that I have already described as part and portion of Don Hombrecillo Justo’s family, entered the room in her usual very scanty dress, with a lighted candle in her hand, led by a little naked negro child. I was curious to see what she would do, but I was not certain how the dog might relish the intrusion; so I put my hand over my quatre, and snapping my finger and thumb, Sneezer immediately rose and came to my bedside. I immediately judged, from the comical expression of his face, as seen by the taper of the intruder, that he thought it was some piece of fun, for he walked quietly up, and confronting the old lady, deliberately took the candlestick out of her hand. The little black urchin thereupon began shouting, “Perro Demonio--Perro Demonio” and in their struggle to escape, she and the old lady tumbled headlong over the sleeping pilot, whereby the candle was extinguished, and we were left in utter darkness. I had therefore nothing for it but to get out of bed, and go down to the cobbler, who lived in the entresol, to get a light. He had not gone to sleep and I gave him no small alarm; indeed he was near absconding at my unseasonable intrusion, but at length I obtained the object of my visit, and returned to my room, when, on opening the door, I saw poor Mangrove lying on his back in the middle of the floor, with his legs and arms extended as if he had been on the rack, his eyes set, his mouth open, and every faculty benumbed by fear. At his feet sat the negro child, almost as much terrified as he was, and crying most lamentably; while, at a little distance, sat the spectre of the old woman, scratching its head with the greatest composure, and exclaiming in Spanish, “a little brandy for love of the Holy Virgin.” But the most curious part of it was the conduct of our old friend Sneezer. There he was sitting on end upon the table, grinning and showing his ivory teeth, his eyes of jet sparkling like diamonds with fun and frolic, and evidently laughing, after his fashion, like to split himself, as he every now and then gave a large sweeping whisk of his tail, like a cat watching a mouse. At length I got the cobbler and his sable rib to take charge of the wanderers, and once more fell asleep.

On my first arrival, I was somewhat surprised at my Spanish acquaintances always putting, up their umbrellas when abroad after nightfall in the streets; the city had its evil customs, it seemed, as well as others of more note, with this disadvantage, that no one had the discretion to sing out gardyloo.

There was another solemn fast about this time, in honour of a saint having had a tooth drawn, or some equally important event, and Don Hombrecillo and I had been at the evening service in the church of the convent of La Merced, situated, as I have already mentioned, directly opposite his house, on the other side of the lane; and this being over, we were on the eve of returning home, when the flannel-robed superior came up and invited us into the refectory, whereunto, after some palaver, we agreed to adjourn, and had a good supper, and some bad Malaga wine, which, however, seemed to suit the palates of the Frailes, if taking a very decent quantity thereof were any proof of the same. Presently two of the lay brothers produced their fiddles, and as I was determined not to be outdone, I volunteered a song, and, as a key-stone to my politeness, sent to Don Hombrecillo’s for the residue of my brandy, which, coming after the bad wine, acted most cordially, opening the hearts of all hands like an oyster knife, the Superior’s especially, who in turn drew on his private treasure also, when out came a large green vitrified earthen pipkin, one of those round-bottomed jars that won’t stand on end, but must perforce lie on their sides, as if it had been a type of the predicament in which some of us were to be placed ere long through its agency. The large cork, buried an inch deep in green wax, was withdrawn from the long neck, and out gurgled most capital old Xeres. So we worked away until we were all pretty well fou, and anon we began to dance; and there were half-a-dozen friars, and old Justo and myself, in great glee, jumping and gamboling about, and making fools of ourselves after a very fantastic fashion--the witches in Macbeth as an illustration.

At length, after being two months in Panama, and still no appearance of the Bandera, I received a letter from the Admiral, desiring me to rejoin the Wave immediately, as it was then known that the line of battle ship had returned to the River Plate. Like most young men, who have hearts of flesh in their bosoms, I had in this short space begun to have my likings--may I not call them friendships?--in this, at the time I write of, most primitive community; and the idea of bidding farewell to it, most likely for ever, sank deep. However, I was His Majesty’s officer, and my services and obedience were his, although my feelings were my own; and, accordingly, stifling the latter, I prepared for my departure.

On the very day whereon I was recalled, a sister of mine host’s--a most reverend mechanic, who had been fourteen years married without chick or child--was brought to bed, to the unutterable surprise of her spouse, and of all the little world in Panama, of a male infant. It had rained the whole day, notwithstanding which, and its being the only authenticated production ever published by the venerable young lady, the piccaniny was carried to the Franciscan church, a distance of half a mile, at nine o’clock at night, through a perfect storm, to be christened, and the evil star of poor Mangrove rose high in the ascendant on the occasion.

After the ceremony, I was returning home chilled with standing uncovered for an hour in a cold damp church, and walking very fast, in order to bring myself into heat, when, on turning a corner, I heard a sound of flutes and fiddles in the street, and from the number of lanterns and torches that accompanied it, I conjectured rightly that it was a Function of no small importance--no less, in fact, than a procession in honour of the Virgin. Poor Mangrove at this time was pattering close to my heels, and I could hear him chuckling and laughing to himself.

“What dis can be--I say, Sneezer”--to his never-failing companion “what you tink, John Canoe--after Spanish fashion, it mosh be, eh?”

The dog began to jump and gambol about.

“Ah,” continued the black pilot, “no doubt it must be John Canoe I may dance--why not--eh?--oh, yes--I shall dance.”

And as the music struck into rather a quicker tune at the moment, our ebony friend began to caper and jump about as if he had been in Jamaica at Christmas time, whereupon one of the choristers, or music boys, as they were called, a beautiful youth, about forty years of age, six feet high, and proportionally strong, without the least warning incontinently smote our amigo across the pate with a brazen saint that he carried, and felled him to the earth; indeed, if el Senor Justo had not been on the spot to interfere, we should have had a scene of it in all likelihood, as the instant the man delivered his blow, Sneezer’s jaws were at his throat, and had he not fortunately obeyed me, and let go at the sound of my voice, we might have had a double of Macaire and the dog of Montargis. As it was, the noble animal, before he let go, brought the culprit to the ground like a shot. I immediately stood forward, and got the feud soldered as well as I could, in which the worthy Justo cordially lent me a hand.

Next morning I rode out on my mule, to take my last dip in the Quebrada of the Loseria, which was a rapid in a beautiful little rivulet, distant from Panama about three miles, and a most exquisite bath it was. Let me describe it. After riding a couple of miles, and leaving the open savannah, you struck off sharp to the left through a narrow bridle-path into the wood, with an impervious forest on either hand, and proceeding a mile farther, you came suddenly upon a small rushing, roaring, miniature cascade, where the pent-up waters leaped through a narrow gap in the limestone rock, that you could have stepped across, down a tiny fall about a fathom high, into a round foaming buzzing basin, twenty feet in diameter, where the clear cool water bubbled and eddied round and round like a boiling cauldron, until it rushed away once more over the lower ledge, and again disappeared, murmuring beneath the thick foliage of the rustling branches. The pool was about ten feet deep, and never was any thing more luxurious in a hot climate.

After having performed my morning ablutions, and looking with a heavy heart at the sweet stream, and at every stock and stone, and shrub and tree, as objects I was never to see again; I trotted on, followed by Peter Mangrove, my man-at-arms, who bestrode his mule gallantly, to Don Hombrecillo’s pen, as the little man delighted to call his country house, situated about five miles from Panama, and which I was previously informed had been given up to the use of his two maiden sisters. I got there about half past ten in the forenoon, and found that el Senor Justo had arrived before me. The situation was most beautiful; the house was embosomed in high wood; the lowest spurs put forth by the gigantic trees being far above the ridge-pole of the wooden fabric. It was a low one story building of unpainted timber, which, from the action of the weather, had been bleached on the outside into a whitish grey appearance, streaked by numerous green weather-stains, and raised about five feet on wooden posts, so that there was room for a flock of goats to shelter themselves below it. Access was had to the interior by a rickety rattle-trap of a wooden ladder, or stair of half-a-dozen steps, at the top of which you landed in an unceiled hall, with the rafters of the roof exposed, and the bare green vitrified tiles for a canopy, while a small sleeping apartment opened off each end. In the centre room there was no furniture except two grass hammocks slung across the room, and three or four old-fashioned leather, or rather hide covered chairs, and an old rickety table; while overhead the tiles were displaced in one or two places, where the droppings from the leaves of the trees, and the sough of their rustling in the wind, came through. There were no inmates visible when we entered but a little negro girl, of whom el Senor Hombrecillo asked “where the Senoras were?”--“En capillo,” said the urchin. Whereupon we turned back and proceeded to a little tiny stone chapel, little bigger than a dog-house, the smallest affair in the shape of a church I had ever seen, about a pistol-shot distant in the wood, where we found the two old ladies and Senor Justo’s natural son engaged at their devotions. On being aware of our presence, they made haste with the service, and, having finished it, arose and embraced their brother, while the son approached and kissed his hand.

One of the ancient demoiselles appeared in bad health; nevertheless, they both gave us a very hearty reception, and prepared breakfast for us; fricasseed fowls, a little too much of the lard, but still, fish from the neighbouring stream, &c., and I was doing the agreeable to the best of my poor ability, when el Senor Justo asked me abruptly if I would go, and bathe. A curious country, thought I, and a strange way people have of doing things. After a hearty meal, instead of giving you time to ruminate, and to allow the gastric juices to operate, away they lug you to be plumped over head and ears into a pool of ice cold water. I rose, confoundedly against my inclinations I will confess, and, we proceeded to a small rocky waterfall, where a man might wash himself certainly, but as to swimming, which is to me the grand desideratum, it was impossible, so I prowled away down the stream, to look out for a pool, and at last I was successful. On returning, as I only took a dip to swear by, the situation of my venerable Spanish ally was entertaining enough. There he was, the most forlorn little mandrake eye ever rested on, cowering like a large frog under the tiny cascade, stark naked, with his knees drawn up to his chin, and his grey queue gathered carefully under a green gourd or calabash that he wore on his head, while his natural son was dashing water in his face, as if the shower bath overhead had not been sufficient.

“Soy banando--soy banando, capitan--fresco--fresquito,” squealed Hombrecillo; while, splash between every exclamation, his dutiful son let fly a gourdfull of agua at his head.

That same evening we returned to Panama; and next morning, being the 22d of such a month, I left my kind friends, and, with Peter Mangrove, proceeded on our journey to Cruces, mounted on two stout mules. I got there late in the evening, the road, from the heavy rains, being in sad condition; but next morning the recua, or convoy of silver, which was to follow me for shipment on merchants account to Kingston, had not arrived. Presently I received a letter from Don Justo, sent express, to intimate that the muleteers had proceeded immediately after we had started for about a mile beyond the suburbs, where they were stopped by the officer of a kind of military post or barrier, under pretence of the passport being irregular; and this difficulty was no sooner cleared up, than the accounts of a bullfight, that was unexpectedly to take place that forenoon, reached them, when the whole bunch, half drunk as they were, started off to Panama again, leaving the money with the soldiers; nor would they return, or be prevailed on to proceed, until the following morning. However, on the 24th, at noon, the money did arrive, which was immediately embarked on board of a large canoe that I had provided; and, having shipped a beautiful little mule also, of which I had made a purchase at Panama, we proceeded down the river to the village of Gorgona, where we slept. My apartment was rather a primitive concern. It was simply a roof or shed, thatched with palm-tree leaves, about twelve feet long by eight broad, and supported on four upright posts at the corners, the eaves being about six feet high. Under this I slung my grass hammock transversely from corner to corner, tricing it well up to the rafters, so that it hung about five feet from the ground; while beneath Mangrove lit a fire, for the twofold purpose, as it struck me, of driving off the musquittoes, and converting his Majesty’s officer into ham or hung beef; and after having made mulo fast to one of the posts, with a bundle of malojo, or the green stems of Indian corn or maize, under his nose, he borrowed a plank from a neighbouring hut, and laid himself down on it at full length, covered up with a blanket, as if he had been a corpse, and soon fell fast asleep. As for Sneezer, he lay with his black muzzle resting on his fore paws, which were thrust out straight before him, until they almost stirred up the white embers of the fire; with his eyes shut, and apparently asleep, but from the constant nervous twitchings and pricking up of his ears, and his haunches being gathered up well under him, and a small quick switch of his tail now and then, it was evident he was broad awake, and considered himself on duty. All continued quiet and silent in our bivouac until midnight, however, except the rushing of the river hard by, when I was awakened by the shaking of the shed from the violent struggles of mulo to break loose, his strong trembling thrilling along the taught cord that held him, down the lanyard of my hammock to my neck, as he drew himself in the intervals of his struggles as far back as he could, proving that the poor brute suffered under a paroxysm of fear. “What noise is that?” I roused myself. It was repeated. It was a wild cry, or rather a loud shrill mew, gradually sinking into a deep growl. “What the deuce is that, Sneezer?” said I. The dog made no answer, but merely wagged his tail once, as if he had said, “Wait a bit now, master; you shall see how well I shall acquit myself, for this is in my way.” Ten yards from the shed under which I slept, there was a pigsty, surrounded by a sort of tiny stockade a fathom high, make of split cane, wove into wickerwork between upright rails sunk into the ground; and by the clear moonlight I could, as I lay in my hammock, see an animal larger than an English bulldog, but with the stealthy pace of the cat, crawl on in a crouching attitude until within ten feet of the sty, when it stopped, looked round, and then drew itself back, and made a scrambling jump against the cane defence, hooking on to the top of it by its fore paws. the claws of its hind feet scratching and rasping against the dry cane splits, until it had gathered its legs into a bunch, like the aforesaid puss, on the top of the enclosure; from which elevation the creature seemed to be reconnoitring the unclean beasts within. I grasped my pistols. Mangrove was still sound asleep. The struggles of mulo increased; I could hear the sweat raining off him; but Sneezer, to my great surprise, remained motionless as before. We now heard the alarmed grunts, and occasionally a sharp squeak, from the piggery, as if the beauties had only now become aware of the vicinity of their dangerous neighbour, who, having apparently made his selection, suddenly dropped down amongst them; when mulo burst from his fastenings with a yell enough to frighten the devil, tearing away the upright to which the lanyard of my hammock was made fast, whereby I was pitched like a shot right down on Mangrove’s corpus, while a volley of grunting and squeaking split the sky, such as I never heard before; while, in the very nick, Sneezer, starting from his lair with a loud bark, sprang at a bound into the enclosure, which he topped like a first rate hunter; and Peter Mangrove, awakening all of a heap from my falling on him, jumped upon his feet as noisy as the rest.

“Caramighty in a tap--wurra all dis--my tomach bruise home to my backbone like one pancake;” and, while the short fierce bark of the noble dog was blended with the agonized cry of the gatto del monte, the shrill treble of the poor porkers rose high above both, and mulo was galloping through the village with the post after him, like a dog with a pan at his tail, making the most unearthly noises; for it was neither bray nor neigh. The villagers ran out of their huts, headed by the Padre Cura, and all was commotion and uproar. Lights were procured. The noise in the sty continued, and Mangrove, the warm hearted creature, unsheathing his knife, clambered over the fence to the rescue of his four footed ally, and disappeared, shouting, “Sneezer often fight for Peter, so Peter now will fight for he;” and soon began to blend his shouts with the cries of the enraged beasts within. At length the mania spread to me upon hearing the poor fellow shout, “Tiger here, Captain tiger here tiger too many for we--Lud-a-mercy--tiger too many for we, sir,--if you no help we, we shall be torn in piece.” Then a violent struggle, and a renewal of the uproar, and of the barking, and yelling, and squeaking. It was now no joke; the life of a fellow-creature was at stake. So I scrambled up after the pilot to the top of the fence, with a loaded pistol in my hand, a young active Spaniard following with a large brown wax candle, that burned like a torch; and looking down on the melee below, there Sneezer lay with the throat of the leopard in his jaws, evidently much exhausted, but still giving the creature a cruel shake now and then, while Mangrove was endeavouring to throttle the brute with his bare hands. As for the poor pigs, they were all huddled together, squeaking and grunting most melodiously in the corner. I held down the light. “Now, Peter, cut his throat, man--cut his throat.”

Mangrove, the moment he saw where he was, drew his knife across the leopard’s weasand, and killed him on the spot. The glorious dog, the very instant he felt he had a dead antagonist in his fangs, let go his hold, and making a jump with all his remaining strength, for he was bleeding much, and terribly torn, I caught him by the nape of the neck, and, in my attempt to lift him over and place him on the outside, down I went, dog and all, amongst the pigs, upon the bloody carcass; out of which mess I was gathered by the Cura and the standers by in a very beautiful condition; for, what between the filth of the sty and blood of the leopard, and so forth, I was not altogether a fit subject, for a side box at the Opera.

This same tiger or leopard had committed great depredations in the neighbourhood for months before, but he had always escaped, although he had been repeatedly wounded; so Peter and I became as great men for the two hours longer that we sojourned in Gorgona, as if we had killed the dragon of Wantley. Our quarry was indeed a noble animal, nearly seven feet from, the nose to the tip of the tail. At day dawn, having purchased his skin for three dollars, I shoved off; and, on the 25th, at five in the evening, having had a strong current with us the whole way down, we arrived at Chagres once more. I found a boat from the Wave waiting for me, and to prevent unnecessary delay, I resolved to proceed with the canoe along the coast to Porto Bello, as there was a strong weather current running, and no wind; and, accordingly, we proceeded next morning, with the canoe in tow, but towards the afternoon it came on to blow, which forced us into a small cove, where we remained for the night in a very uncomfortable situation, as the awning proved an indifferent shelter from the rain, that descended in torrents.

We had made ourselves as snug as it was possible to be in such weather, under an awning of boat sails, and had kindled a fire in a tub at the bottom of the boat, at which we had made ready some slices of beef, and roasted some yams, and were, all hands, master and men, making ourselves comfortable with a glass of grog, when the warp by which we rode suddenly parted, from a puff of wind that eddied down on us over the little cape, and before we could get the oars out, we were tailing on the beach at the opposite side of the small bay. However, we soon regained our original position, by which time all was calm again where we lay; and this time, we sent the end of the line ashore, making it fast round a tree, and once more rode in safety. But I could not sleep, and the rain having ceased, the clouds broke away, and the moon once more shone out cold, bright, and clear. I had stepped forward from under the temporary awning, and was standing on the thwart, looking out to windward, endeavouring to judge of the weather at sea, and debating in my own mind whether it would be prudent to weigh before daylight, or remain where we were. But all in the offing, beyond the small headland, under the lee of which we lay, was dark and stormy water, and white crested howling waves, although our snug little bay continued placid and clear, with the moonbeams dancing on the twinkling ripple, that was lap, lapping, an& sparkling like silver on the snow-white beach of sand and broken shells; while the hills on shore that rose high and abrupt close to, were covered with thick jungle, from which, here and there, a pinnacle of naked grey rock would shoot up like a gigantic spectre, or a tall tree would cast its long black shadow over the waving sea of green leaves that undulated in the breeze beneath.

As the wind was veering about rather capriciously, I had cast my eye anxiously along the warp, to see how it bore the strain, when to my surprise it appeared to thicken at the end next the tree, and presently something like a screw, about a foot long, that occasionally shone like glass in the moonlight, began to move along the taught line, with a spiral motion. All this time one of the boys was fast asleep, resting on his folded arms on the gunwale, his head having dropped down on the stem of the boat; but one of the Spanish bogas in the canoe, which was anchored close to us, seeing me gazing at something, now looked in the same direction; the instant he caught the object, he thumped with his palms on the side of the canoe exclaiming, in a loud alarmed tone-- “Culebra--culebra,--a snake, a snake,”--on which the reptile made a sudden and rapid slide down the line towards the bow of the boat where the poor lad was sleeping, and immediately afterwards dropped into the sea.

The sailor rose and walked aft, as if nothing had happened, amongst his messmates, who had been alarmed by the cries of the Spanish canoe man, and I was thinking little of the matter, when I heard some anxious whispering amongst them.

“Fred,” said one of the men, “what is wrong, that you breathe so hard?”

“Why, boy, what ails you?” said another.

“Something has stung me,” at length said the poor little fellow, speaking thick, as if he had laboured under sore throat. The truth flashed on me, a candle was lit, and, on looking at him, he appeared stunned, complained of cold, and suddenly assumed a wild startled look.

He evinced great anxiety and restlessness, accompanied by a sudden and severe prostration of strength--still continuing to complain of great and increasing cold and chilliness, but he did not shiver. As yet no part of his body was swollen, except very slightly about the wound; however, there was a rapidly increasing rigidity of the muscles of the neck and throat, and within half an hour after he was bit, he was utterly unable to swallow even liquids. The small whip-snake, the most deadly asp in the whole list of noxious reptiles peculiar to South America, was not above fourteen inches long; it had made four small punctures with its fangs, right over the left jugular vein, about an inch below the chin. There was no blood oozing from them, but a circle about the size of a crownpiece of dark red surrounded them, gradually melting into blue at the outer rim, which again became fainter and fainter, until it disappeared in the natural colour of the skin. By the advice of he Spanish boatman, we applied an embrocation of the leaves of the palma Christi, or castor-oil nut, as hot as the lad could bear it, but we had neither oil nor hot milk to give internally, both of which they informed us often proved specifics. Rather than lie at anchor, until morning, under these melancholy circumstances, I shoved out into the rough water, but we made little of it, and when the day broke, I saw that the poor fellow’s fate was sealed. His voice had become inarticulate, the coldness had increased, all motion in the extremities had ceased, the legs and arms became quite stiff, the respiration slow and difficult, as if the blood had coagulated, and could no longer circulate through the heart; or as if, from some unaccountable effect of the poison on the nerves, the action of the former had been impeded;-- still the poor little fellow was perfectly sensible, and his eye bright and restless. His breathing became still more interrupted--he could no longer be said to breathe, but gasped--and in another half hour, like a steam-engine when the fire is withdrawn, the strokes, or contractions and expansions of his heart became slower and slower, until they ceased altogether.

From the very moment of his death, the body began rapidly to swell, and become discoloured; the face and neck, especially, were nearly as black as ink within half an hour of it, when blood began to flow from the mouth, and other symptoms of rapid decomposition succeeded each other so fast, that by nine in the morning we had to sew him up in a boat sail, with a large stone, and launch the body into the sea.

We continued to struggle against the breeze until eleven o’clock in the forenoon of the 27th, when the wind again increased to such a pitch, that we had to cast off our tow, and leave her on the coast under the charge of little Reefpoint, with instructions to remain in the creek where he was, until the schooner picked him up; we then pushed once more through the surf for Porto Bello, where we arrived in safety at five P.m. Next morning at daylight we got under weigh, and stood down for the canoe, and having received the money on board, and the Spaniards who accompanied it, and poor mulo, we made sail for Kingston, Jamaica, and on the 4th of the following month were off Carthagena once more, having been delayed by calms and light winds. The captain of the port shoved out to us, and I immediately recognized him as the officer to whom poor old Deadeye once gave a deuced fright, when we were off the town, in the old Torch, during the siege, and about a fortnight before she foundered in the hurricane; but in the present instance he was all civility; on his departure we made sail, and arrived at Kingston, safe and sound, in the unusually short passage of sixty hours from the time we left Carthagena.

Here the first thing I did was to call on some of my old friends, with one of whom I found a letter lying for me from Mr Bang, requesting a visit at his domicile in St Thomas in the Vale so soon as I arrived; and through the extreme kindness of my Kingston allies, I had, on my intention of accepting it being known, at least half a dozen gigs offered to me, with servants and horses, and I don’t know what all. I made my selection, and had arranged to start at day-dawn next morning, when a cousin of mine, young Palma, came in where I was dining, and said that his mother and the family had arrived in town that very day, and were bound on a picnic party next morning to visit the Falls in St David’s. I agreed to go, and to postpone my visit to friend Aaron for the present; and very splendid scenery did we see; but as I had seen the Falls of Niagara, of course I was not astonished. There was a favourite haunt and cave of Three-fingered Jack shown to us in the neighbourhood, very picturesque and romantic, and all that sort of thing, but I was escorting my Mary, and the fine scenery and roaring waters were at this time thrown away on me. However, there was one incident amusing enough. Mary and I had wandered away from the rest of the party, about a mile above the cascade, where the river was quiet and still, and divided into several tiny streams or pools, by huge stones that had rolled from the precipitous banks, down into its channel; when on turning an angle of the rock, we came unexpectedly on my old ally Whiffle, with a cigar in his mouth, seated on a cane bottomed chair, close to the brink of the water, with a little low table at his right hand, on which stood a plate of cold meat, over which his black servant held a green branch, with which he was brushing the flies away, while a large rummer of cold brandy grog was immersed in the pool at his feet, covered up with a cool plantain leaf. He held a long fishing rod in his hands, eighteen feet at the shortest, fit to catch salmon with, which he had to keep nearly upright, in order to let his hook drop into the pool, which was not above five feet wide--why he did not heave it by hand I am sure I cannot tell; indeed, I would as soon have thought of angling for gold fish in my aunt’s glass globe--and there he sat fishing with great complacency. However, he seemed a little put out when we came up. “Ah, Tom, how do you do?--Miss, your most obsequious--no rain mullet deucedly shy, Tom-- ah! what a glorious nibble--there--there again--I have him;” and sure enough, he had hooked a fine mountain mullet, weighing about a pound and a half, and in the ecstasy of the moment, and his hurry to land him handsomely, he regularly capsized in his chair, upset the rummer of brandy grog and table and all the rest of it. We had a good laugh, and then rejoined our party, and that evening we all sojourned at Lucky Valley, a splendid coffee estate, with a most excellent man and an exceedingly obliging fellow for a landlord.

Next day we took a long ride, to visit a German gentleman, who had succeeded in a wonderful manner in taming fish. He received us very hospitably, and after lunch, we all proceeded to his garden, through which ran a beautiful stream of the clearest water. It was about four feet broad, and a foot deep, where it entered the garden, but gradually widened in consequence of a dam with stakes at the top having been erected at the lower part of it, until it became a pool twelve feet broad, and four feet deep, of the most beautiful crystal clear water that can be imagined, while the margin on both sides was fringed with the fairest flowers that Europe or the tropics could afford. We all peered into the stream, but could see nothing except an occasional glance of a white scale or fin now and then.--“Liverpool!” shouted the old German who was doing the honours--“Liverpool, come bring de food for de fis.” Liverpool, a respectable-looking negro, approached, and stooping down at the water’s edge, held a piece of roasted plantain close to the surface of it. In an instant, upwards of a hundred mullet, large fine fish, some of them above a foot long, rushed from out the dark clear depths of the quiet pool, and jumped, and walloped, and struggled for the food, although the whole party were standing close by. Several of the ladies afterwards tried their hand, and the fish, although not apparently quite so confident, after a tack here and a tack there, always in the end came close to and made a grab at what was held to them.

That evening I returned to Kingston, where I found an order lying for me to repair as second-lieutenant on board the Firebrand once more, and to resign the command of the Wave to no less a man than Moses Yerk, esquire; and a happy man was Moses, and a gallant fellow he proved himself in her, and earned laurels and good freights of specie, and is now comfortably domiciled amongst his friends.

The only two Waves, that I successfully made interest at their own request to get back with me, were Tailtackle, and little Reefpoint.

Time wore on--days and weeks and months passed away, during which we were almost constantly at sea, but incidents worth relating had grown scarce, as we were now in piping times of peace, when even a stray pirate had become a rarity, and a luxury denied to all but the small craft people. On one of our cruises, however, we had been working up all morning to the southward of the Pedro shoals, with the wind strong at east, a hard fiery sea-breeze. We had hove-about, some three hours before, and were standing in towards the land, on the starboard tack, when the look-out at the masthead hailed.

“The water shoals on the weather bow, sir;” and presently, “breakers right ahead.”

“Very well,” I replied--“all right.”

“We are nearing the reefs, sir,” said I, walking aft and addressing Captain Transom; “shall we stand by to go about, sir?”

“Certainly--heave in stays as soon as you like, Mr Cringle.”

At this moment the man aloft again sung out--“There is a wreck on the weather most point of the long reef, sir.”

“Ay! what does she look like?”

“I see the stumps of two lower masts, but the bowsprit is gone, sir--I think she must be a schooner or a brig, sir.”

The Captain was standing by, and looked up to me, as I stood on the long eighteen at the weather-gangway.

“Is the breeze not too strong, Mr Cringle?”

I glanced my eye over the side--“Why, no, sir--a boat will live well enough--there is not so much sea in shore here.”

“Very well--haul the courses up, and heave-to.”

It was done.

“Pipe away the yawlers, boatswain’s mate.”

The boat over the lee-quarter was lowered, and I was sent to reconnoitre the object that had attracted our attention. As we approached, we passed the floating swollen carcasses of several bullocks, and some pieces of wreck; and getting into smooth water, under the lee of the reef, we pulled up under the stem of the shattered hull which lay across it, and scrambled on deck by the boat tackles, that hung from the davits, as if the jolly-boat had recently been lowered. The vessel was a large Spanish schooner, apparently about one hundred and eighty tons burden, nearly new; every thing strong and well fitted about her, with a beautiful spacious flush-deck, surrounded by high solid bulwarks. All the boats had disappeared; they might either have been carried away by the crew, or washed overboard by the sea. Both masts were gone about ten feet above the deck; which, with the whole of their spars and canvass, and the wreck of the bowsprit, were lumbering and rattling against the lee-side of the vessel, and splashing about in the broken water, being still attached to the hull by the standing rigging, no part of which had been cut away. The mainsail, foresail, fore-topsail, fore-staysail, and jib were all set, so she must most likely have gone on the reef, either under a press of canvass in the night, in ignorance of its vicinity, or by missing stays.

She lay on her beam-ends across the coral rock, on which there was about three feet water where shallowest, and had fallen over to leeward, presenting her starboard broadside to the sea, which surged along it in a slanting direction, while the lee gunwale was under water. The boiling white breakers were dashing right against her bows, lifting them up with every send, and thundering them down again against the flint-- hard coral spikes, with a loud gritting rumble; while every now and then the sea made a fair breach over them, flashing up over the whole deck aft to the tafferel in a snow storm of frothy flakes. Forward in the bows there lay, in one horrible fermenting and putrefying mass, the carcasses of about twenty bullocks, part of her deck-load of cattle, rotted into one hideous lump, with the individual bodies of the poor brutes almost obliterated and undistinguishable, while streams of decomposed animal matter were ever and anon flowing down to leeward, although as often washed away by the hissing waters. But how shall I describe the scene of horror that presented itself in the after part of the vessel, under the lee of the weather-bulwarks!

There, lashed to the ring-bolts, and sheltered from the sun and sea, by a piece of canvass, stretched across a broken oar, lay, more than half naked, the dead bodies of an elderly female, and three young women; one of the latter with two lifeless children fastened by handkerchiefs to her waist, while each of the other two had the corpse of an infant firmly clasped in her arms.

It was the dry season, and as they lay right in the wake of the windward ports, exposed to a thorough draft of air, and were defended from the sun and the spray, no putrefaction had taken place; the bodies looked like mummies, the shrunken muscles, and wasted features, being covered with a dry horny skin, like parchment; even the eyes remained full and round, as if they had been covered over with a hard dim scale.

On looking down into the steerage, we saw another corpse, that of a tall young slip of a Spanish girl, surging about in the water, which reached nearly to the deck, with her long black hair floating and spread out all over her neck and bosom, but it was so offensive and decayed, that we were glad to look another way. There was no male corpse to be seen, which, coupled with the absence of the boats, evinced but too clearly that the crew had left the females, with their helpless infants, on the wreck to perish. There was a small roundhouse on the after-part of the deck, in which we found three other women alive, but wasted to skeletons. We took them into the boat, but one died in getting her over the side; the other two we got on board, and I am glad to say that they both recovered. For two days neither could speak; there seemed to be some rigidity about the throat and mouth that prevented them; but at length the youngest--(the other was her servant)--a very handsome woman, became strong enough to tell us, “that it was the schooner Caridad that we had boarded, bound from Rio de la Hache to Savana la Mar, where she was to have discharged her deck-load of cattle, and afterwards to have proceeded to Batabano, in Cuba. She had struck, as I surmised, in the night, about a fortnight before we fell in with her; and next morning, the crew and male passengers took to the boats, which with difficulty contained them, leaving the women under a promise to come back that evening, with assistance from the shore, but they never appeared, nor were they ever after heard of.” And here the poor thing cried as if her heart would break. “Even my own Juan, my husband, left me and my child to perish on the wreck. Oh God! Oh God! I could not have left him--I could not have left him.”

There had been three families on board, with their servants, who were emigrating to Cuba, all of whom had been abandoned by the males, who, as already related, must in all human probability have perished after their unmanly desertion. As the whole of the provisions were under water, and could not be got at, the survivors had subsisted on raw flesh so long as they had strength to cut it, or power to swallow it; what made the poor creature tell it, I cannot imagine, if it were not to give the most vivid picture possible, in her conception, of their loneliness and desolation, but she said, “no sea-bird even ever came near us.”

It were harrowing to repeat the heart-rendering description given by her, of the sickening of the heart when the first night fell, and still no tidings of the boats; the second sun set--still the horizon was speckless; the next dreary day wore to an end, and three innocent helpless children were dead corpses; on the fourth, madness seized on their mothers, and--but I will not dwell on such horrors.

During these manifold goings and comings I naturally enlarged the circle of my acquaintance in the island, especially in Kingston, the mercantile capital; and often does my heart glow within me, when the scenes I have witnessed in that land of fun and fever rise up before me after the lapse of many years, under the influence of a good fire and a glass of old Madeira. Take the following sample of Jamaica High Jinks as one of many. On a certain occasion I had gone to dine with Mr Isaac Shingle, and extensive American merchant, and a most estimable man, who considerately sent his gig down to the wherry wharf for me. At six o’clock I arrived at my friend’s mansion, situated in the upper part of the town, a spacious one-story house, overshadowed by two fine old trees, and situated back from the street about ten yards; the intervening space being laid out in a beautiful little garden, raised considerably above the level of the adjoining thoroughfare, from which it was divided by a low parapet wall, surmounted by a green painted wooden railing. There was a flight of six brick steps from the street to the garden, and you ascended from the latter to the house itself, which was raised on brick pillars a fathom high, by another stair of eight, broad marble slabs. The usual verandah, or piazza, ran along the whole front, beyond which you entered a large and lofty, but very darksome hall, answering to our European drawing room into which the bedrooms opened on each side. It did strike me at first as odd, that the principal room in the house should be a dark dungeon of a place, with nothing but borrowed lights, until I again recollected that darkness and coolness were convertible terms within the tropics. Advancing through this room you entered, by a pair of folding doors, on a very handsome dining room, situated in what I believe is called a back jamb, a sort of outrigger to the house, fitted all round with movable blinds, or jealousies, and open like a lantern to all the winds of heaven except the west, in which direction the main body of the house warded off the sickening beams of the setting sun. And how sickening they are, let the weary sentries under the pillars of the Jamaica viceroy’s house in Spanish Town tell, reflected as they were there from the hot brick walls of the palace.

This room again communicated with the back yard, in which the negro houses, kitchen, and other offices were situated, by a wooden stair of the same elevation as that in front. Here the table was laid for dinner, covered with the finest diaper, and snow-white napkins, and silver wine-coolers, and silver forks, and fine steel, and cut glass, and cool green finger-glasses with lime leaves floating within, and tall wax lights shaded from the breeze in thin glass barrels, and an epergne filled with flowers, with a fragrant fresh-gathered lime in each of the small leaf-like branches, and salt-cellars with red peppers in them, &c. &c. all of which made the tout ensemble the most captivating imaginable to a hungry man.

I found a large party assembled in the piazza and the dark hall, to whom I was introduced in due form. In Jamaica, of all countries I ever was in, it is a most difficult matter for a stranger to ascertain the real names of the guests at a bachelor dinner like the present, where all the parties were intimate--there were so many soubriquets amongst them; for instance, a highly respectable merchant of the place, with some fine young women for daughters, by the way, from the peculiarity of a prominent front tooth, was generally known as the Grand Duke of Tuscany; while an equally respectable elderly man, with a slight touch of paralysis in his head, was christened Old Steady in the West, because he never kept his head still; so, whether some of the names of the present party were real or fictitious, I really cannot tell.

First, there was Mr Seco, a very neat gentlemanlike little man, perfectly well bred, and full of French phrases. Then came Mr Eschylus Stave, a tall, raw-boned, well-informed personage; a bit of a quiz on occasion, but withal a pleasant fellow. Mr Isaac Shingle, mine host, a sallow, sharp, hatchet-faced, small, but warm hearted and kind, as I often experienced during my sojourn in the west, only sometimes a little peppery and argumentative. Then came Mr Jacob Bumble, a sleek fat-- pated Scotchman. Next I was introduced to Mr Alonzo Smoothpate, a very handsome fellow, with an uncommon share of natural good-breeding and politeness. Again I clapper-clawed, according to the fashion of the country, a violent shake of the paw being the Jamaica investment to acquaintanceship, with Mr Percales, whom I took for a foreign Jew somehow or other at first, from his uncommon name, until I heard him speak, and perceived he was an Englishman; indeed, his fresh complexion, very neat person, and gentlemanlike deportment, when I had time to reflect, would of themselves have disconnected him from all kindred with the sons of Levi. Then came a long, dark-complexioned, curly-pated slip of a lad, with white teeth and high strongly marked features, considerably pitted with small-pox. He seemed the great promoter of fun and wickedness in the party, and was familiarly addressed as the Don, although I believe his real name was Mr Lucifer Longtram. Then there was Mr Aspen Tremble, a fresh-looking, pleasant, well informed man, but withal a little nervous, his cheeks quivering when he spoke like shapes of calf’s foot jelly; after him came an exceedingly polite old gentleman, wearing hair-powder and a queue, ycleped Nicodemus; and a very devil of a little chap, of the name of Rubiochico, a great ally in wickedness with Master Longtram; the last in this eventful history being a staid, sedate looking, elderly-young man, of the name of Onyx Steady, an extensive foreign merchant, with a species of dry caustic readiness about him that was dangerous enough.--We sat down, Isaac Shingle doing the honours, confronted by Eschylus Stave, and all was right, and smooth, and pleasant, and in no way different from a party of well bred men in England.

When the second course appeared, I noticed that the blackie, who brought in two nice tender little ducklings, with the concomitant green peas, both just come in season, was chuckling, and grinning, and showing his white teeth most vehemently, as he placed both dishes right under Jacob Bumble’s nose. Shingle and Longtram exchanged looks. I saw there was some mischief toward, and presently, as if by some preconcerted signal, every body asked for duck, duck, duck. Bumble, with whom the dish was a prime favourite, carved away with a most stern countenance, until he had got half through the second bird, when some unpleasant recollection seemed to come over him, and his countenance fell; and lying back on his chair, he gave a deep sigh. But “Mr Bumble, that breast, if you please thank you,”--“Mr Bumble, that back, if you please,” succeeded each other rapidly, until all that remained of the last of the ducklings was a beautiful little leg, which, under cover of the following story, Jacob cannily smuggled on to his own plate.

“Why, gentlemen, a most remarkable circumstance happened to me while dressing for dinner. You all know I am next door neighbour to our friend Shingle--our premises being only divided by a brick wall, about eight feet high. Well, my dressing room window looks out on this wall, between which and the house, I have my duck pen....”

“Your what?” said I.

“My poultry yard--as I like to see the creatures fed myself--and I was particularly admiring two beautiful ducklings which I had been carefully fattening for a whole week”--(here our friend’s voice shook, and a tear glistened in his eye)--“when first one and then another jumped out of the little pond, and successively made a grab at something which I could not see, and immediately began to shake their wings, and struggle with their feet, as if they were dancing, until, as with one accord--deuce take me!”--(here he almost blubbered aloud)--“if they did not walk up the brick wall with all the deliberation in the world, merely helping themselves over the top by a small flaff of their wings; and where they have gone, none of Shingle’s people know.”

“I’ll trouble you for that leg, Julius,” said Longtram, at this juncture, to a servant, who whipped away the plate from under Bumble’s arm, before he could prevent him, who looked after it as if it had been a pound of his own flesh. It seemed that Longtram, who had arrived rather early, had found a fishing-tackle in the piazza, and knowing the localities of Bumble’s premises, as well as his peculiarities, he, by way of adding his quota to the entertainment, baited two hooks with pieces of raw potatoes, and throwing them over the wall, had, in conjunction with Julius the black, hooked up the two ducklings out of the pen, to the amazement of Squire Bumble.

By and by, as the evening wore on, I saw the Longtram lad making demonstrations to bring on a general drink, in which he was nobly seconded by Rubiochico; and, I grieve to say it, I was no ways loath, nor indeed were any of the company.--There had been a great deal of mirth and frolic during dinner,--all within proper bounds, however,--but as the night made upon us, we set more sail--more, as it turned out, than some of us had ballast for--when lo! towards ten of the clock, up started Mr Eschylus to give us a speech. His seat was at the bottom of the table, with the back of his chair close to the door that opened into the yard; and after he had got his breath out, on I forget what topic; he sat down, and lay back on his balanced chair, stretching out his long legs with great complacency. However, they did not prove a sufficient counterpoise to his very square shoulders, which, obeying the laws of gravitation, destroyed his equilibrium, and threw him a somersault, when exit Eschylus Stave, esquire, head foremost, with a formidable rumble tumble and hurry--scurry, down the back steps, his long shanks disappearing last, and clipping between us, and the bright moon like a pair of flails.

However, there was no damage done; and, after a good laugh, Stave’s own being loudest of all, the Don and Rubiochico righted him, and helped him once more into his chair.

Jacob Bumble now favoured us with a song, that sounded as if he had been barrelled up in a puncheon, and was cantando through the bunghole; then Rubiochico sang, and the Don sang, and we all sang and bumpered away; and Mr Seco got on the table, and gave us the newest quadrille step; and, in fine, we were all becoming dangerously drunk. Longtram, especially, had become uproarious beyond all bounds, and, getting up from his chair, he took a short run of a step or two, and sprang right over the table, whereby he smashed the epergne full of fruit and flowers, scattering the contents all about like hail, and driving a volley of preserved limes like grapeshot, in all their syrup and stickiness, slap into my face--a stray one spinning with a sloppy whit into Jacob Bumble’s open mouth as he sang, like a musket-ball into a winter turnip; while a fine preserved pineapple flew bash on Isaac Shingle’s sharp snout, like the bursting of a shrapnel shell.

“D----n it,” hiccuped Shingle, “wont stand this any longer, by JuJu jupiter! Give over your practicals, Lucifer. Confound it, Don, give over--do, now, you mad long legged son of a gun!”--Here the Don caught Shingle round the waist, and whipping him bodily out of his chair, carried him kicking and spurring into the hall, now well lit up, and laid him on a sofa, and then returning, coolly installed himself in his seat.

In a little we heard the squeaking of a pig in the street, and our friend Shingle’s voice high in oath. I sallied forth to see the cause of the uproar, and found our host engaged in single combat with a drawn sword-stick that sparkled blue and bright in the moonbeam, his antagonist being a strong porker that he had taken for a town guard, and had hemmed into a corner formed by the stair and the garden wall, which, on being pressed, made a dash between his spindleshanks, and fairly capsized him into my arms. I carried him back to his couch again; and, thinking it was high time to be off, as I saw that Smoothpate, and Steady, and Nicodemus, and the more composed part of the company, had already absconded, I seized my hat, and made sail in the direction of the former’s house, where I was to sleep, when that devil Longtram made up to me.

“Hillo, my little man of war--heave-to a bit, and take me with you. Why what is that? what the deuce is that?” We were at this time staggering along under the dark piazza of a long line of low wooden houses, every now and then thundering against the thin boards or bulkheads that constituted the side next the street, making, as we could distinctly hear, the inmates start and snort in the inside, as they turned themselves in their beds. In the darkest part of the piazza, there was the figure of a man in the attitude of a telescope levelled on its stand, with its head, as it were, counter-sunk or morticed into the wooden partition. Tipsy as we both were, we stopped in great surprise.

“D--n it, Cringle,” said the Don, his philosophy utterly at fault, “the trunk of a man without a head,--how is this?”

“Why, Mr Longtram,” I replied, “this is our friend Mr Smoothpate, or I mistake greatly.”

“Let me see,” said Longtram,--“if it be him, he used to have a head somewhere, I know.--Let me see.--Oh, it is him; you are right, my boy; and here is his head after all, and a devil of a size it has grown to since dinner-time to be sure.--But I know his features bald pate--high forehead and cheekbones.”

Nota Bene. We were still in the piazza, where Smoothpate was unquestionably present in the body, but the head was within the house, and altogether, as I can avouch, beyond the Don’s ken.

“Where?” said I, groping about--“very odd, for deuce take me if I can see his head.--Why, he has none--a phenomenon--four legs and a tail, but no head, as I am a gentleman--lively enough, too, he is, don’t seem to miss it much.” Here poor Smoothpate made a violent walloping in a vain attempt to disentangle himself.

We could now hear shouts of laughter within, and a voice that I was sure belonged to Mr Smoothpate, begging to be released from the pillory he had placed himself in by removing a board in the wooden partition, and sliding it up, and then thrusting his caput from without into the interior of the house, to the no small amazement of the brown fiddler and his daughter who inhabited the same, and who had immediately secured their prize by slipping the displaced board down again, wedging it firmly on the back of his neck, as if he had been fitted for the guillotine, thus nailing him fast, unless he had bolted, and left his head in pawn.

We now entered, and perceived it was really Don Alonzo’s flushed but very handsome countenance that was grinning at us from where it was fixed, like a large peony rose stuck against the wall. After a hearty laugh we relieved him, and being now joined by Percales, who came up in his gig, with Mr Smoothpate’s following in his wake, we embarked for an airing at half-past one in the morning--Smoothpate and Percales, Longtram and Tom Cringle. Amongst other exploits, we broke into a proscribed conventicle of drunken negroes--but I am rather ashamed of this part of the transaction, and intended to have held my tongue, had Aaron managed his, although it was notorious as the haunt of all the thieves and slight ladies of the place; here we found parson Charley, a celebrated black preacher, three parts drunk, extorting, as Mawworm says, a number of devotees, male and female, all very tipsy, in a most blasphemous fashion, the table being covered with rummers of punch, and fragments of pies and cold meat; but this did not render our conduct more excusable, I will acknowledge. Finally, as a trophy, Percales, who was a wickeder little chap than I took him for, with Longtram’s help, unshipped the bell of the conventicle from the little belfry, and fastening it below Smoothpate’s gig, we dashed back to Mr Shingle’s with it clanging at every jolt. In our progress the horse took fright, and ran away, and no wonder.

“Zounds, Don, the weather-rein has parted--what shall we do?” said I.

“Do?” rejoined Lucifer, with drunken gravity--“haul on the other, to be sure--there is one left, an’t there?--so hard a-port, and run him up against that gun at the street corner, will ye? That will stop him, or the devil is in it.”

Crash--it was done--and over the horse’s ears we both flew like skyrockets; but, strange to tell, although we had wedged the wheel of the ketureen fast as a wreck on a reef, with the cannon that was stuck into the ground postwise between it and the body, there was no damage done beyond the springing of the starboard shaft, so, with the assistance of the negro servant, who had been thrown from his perch behind, by a shock that frightened him out of his wits, we hove the voiture off again, and arrived in safety at friend Shingle’s once more. Here we found the table set out with devilled turkey, and a variety of high-spiced dishes; and, to make a long story short, we had another set to, during which, as an interlude, Longtram capsized Shingle out of the sofa he had again lain down on, in an attempt to jump over it, and broke his arm; and, being the soberest man of the company, I started off, guided by a negro servant, for Doctor Greyfriars. On our return, the first thing that met our eyes was the redoubted Don himself, lying on his back where he had fallen at his leap, with his head over the step at the door of the piazza. I thought his neck was broken; and the doctor, considering that he was the culprit to be carved, forthwith had him carried in, his coat taken off, and was about striking a phleme into him, when Isaac’s voice sounded from the inner apartment, where he had lain all the while below the sofa like a crushed frog, the party in the background, who were boosing away, being totally unconscious of his mishap, as they sat at table in the room beyond, enjoying themselves, impressed apparently with the belief that the whole affair was a lark.

“Doctor, doctor,” shouted he in great pain,--“here, here--it is me that is murdered--that chap is only dead drunk, but I am really dead, or will be, if you don’t help.”

At length the arm was set, and Shingle put to bed, and the whole crew dispersed themselves, each moving off as well as he could towards his own home.

But the cream of the jest was richest next day. Parson Charley, who, drunk as he had been overnight, still retained a confused recollection of the parties who had made the irruption, in the morning applied to Mr Smoothpate to have his bell restored, when the latter told him, with the utmost gravity, that Mr Onyx Steady was the culprit, who, by the by, had disappeared from Shingle’s before the bell interlude, and, in fact, was wholly ignorant of the transaction. “Certainly,” quoth Smoothpate, with the greatest seriousness, “a most unlikely person, I will confess, Charley, as he is a grave, respectable man; still, you know, the most demure cats sometimes steal cream, Charley; so, parson, my good man, Mr Onyx Steady has your bell, and no one else.”

Whereupon, away trudged Charley to Mr Steady’s warehouse, pulling off his hat with a formal salaam, “Good Massa Onyx--sweet Massa Teady--pray give me de bell.” Here the sable clerigo gathered himself up, and leant composedly on his long staff, hat still in hand, and ear turned towards Mr Steady, awaiting his answer.

“Bell!” ejaculated Steady, in great amazement,--“bell! what bell?”

“Oh, good, sweet Massa Onyx, dear Massa Onyx Teady, every body know you good person--quiet, wise somebody you is--all person sabe dat,” whined Charley; then slipping near our friend, he whispered to him--“but de best of we lob bit of fon now and dende best of we lef to himshef sometime.”

“Confound the fellow!” quoth Onyx, rather pushed off his balance by such an unlooked--for attack before his clerks; “get out of my house, sir what the mischief do I know of you or your infernal bell? I wish the tongue of it was in your stomach--get out, sir, away with you.”

Charley could stand this no longer, and losing patience, “D--n me eye, you is de tief, sir--so give me de bell, Massa Teady, or I sall pull you go before de Mayor, Massa Teady, and you sall be shame, Massa Teady; and it may be you sall be export to de Bay of Honduras, Massa Teady. Aha, how you will like dat, Massa Teady? you sall be export may be for break into chapel, during sarvice, and teal bell--aha, teal bell--who ever yeerie one crime equal to dat!”

“My good man,” quoth Onyx, who now felt the absurdity of the affair, “I know nothing of all this--believe me there is a mistake. Who sent you here?”

“Massa Smoothpate,” roared Charley, “Massa Smoothpate, he who neber tell lie to nobody, Massa Smoothpate sent me, sir, so de debil if you no give up de bell I sall....”

“Mr Smoothpate--oh ho!” sung out Steady, ‘I see, I see’--Finally the affair was cleared up, a little hush-money made him snug, and Charley having got back his instrument, bore no malice, so he and Steady resumed their former friendly footing--the “statu quo ante bellum.”

Another story and I have done.

About a week after this, several of the same party again met at dinner, when my excellent friend Mr Nicodemus amused us exceedingly by the following story, which, for want of a better title, I shall relate under the head of:

A Slippery Youth

“We all know,” quoth old Nic, “that house robberies have been very rife of late, and on peril even of having the laugh against me, I will tell you how I suffered, no longer than three nights ago; so, Tom Cringle, will you and Bang have the charity to hold your tongues, and be instructed?

“Old Gelid, Longtram, Steady, and myself, had been eating ratoons, at the Fortner’s domicile, and it was about nine in the evening when I got home. We had taken next to no wine, a pint of Madeira apiece during dinner, and six bottles of claret between us afterwards, so I went to bed as cool as a cucumber, and slept soundly for several hours, until awakened by my old gander--now do be quiet, Cringle--by my old watchman of a gander, cackling like a hero. I struck my repeater--half past one so I turned myself, and was once more falling over into the arms of Morpheus, when I thought I saw some dark object flit silently across the open window that looks into the piazza, between me and the deep blue and as yet moonless sky. This somewhat startled me, but it might have been one of the servants. Still I got up and looked out, but I could see nothing. It did certainly strike me once or twice, that there was some dark object cowering in the deep gloom caused by the shade of the orange tree at the end of the piazza, but I persuaded myself it was fancy, and once more slipped into my nest. However, the circumstance had put sleep to flight. Half an hour might have passed, and the deep dark purity of the eastern sky was rapidly quickening into a greenish azure, the forerunner of the rising moon,” (“oh, confound your poetry,” said Rubiochico,) “which was fast swamping the sparkling stars, like a bright river flowing over diamonds, when the old gander again set up his gabblement and trumpeted more loudly than before. ‘If you were not so tough, my noisy old cock’--thought I--‘next Michaelmas should be your last.’ So I now resolutely shut my eyes, and tried to sleep perforce, in which usually fruitless attempt, I was actually beginning to succeed, do you know, when a strong odour of palm oil came through the window, and on opening my eyes, I saw by the increasing light a naked negro standing at it, with his head and shoulders in sharp relief against the pale broad disk of the moon, at that moment just peering over the dark summit of the Long mountain.

“I rubbed my eyes, and looked again; the dark figure was still there, but as if aware that some one was on the watch, it gradually sank down, until nothing but the round bullet head appeared above the window sill. This was trying enough, but I made an effort, and lay still. The stratagem succeeded; the figure, deceived by my feigned snoring and quietude, slowly rose, and once more stood erect. Presently it slipped one foot into the room, and then another, but so noiselessly that when I saw the black figure standing before me on the floor, I had some misgivings as to its being really a being of this world. However, I had small space for speculation, when it slid past the foot of the bed towards my open bureau--I seized the opportunity--started up--turned the key of the door--and planted myself right between the thief and the open window. ‘Now, you scoundrel, surrender, or I will murder you on the spot.’ I had scarcely spoken the word, when with the speed of light, the fellow threw himself on me--we closed--I fell--when, clip, he slipped through my fingers like an eel--bolted through the window--cleared the balcony at a bound, and disappeared. The thief had stripped himself as naked as he was born, and soaped his woolly scull, and smeared his whole corpus with palm oil, so that in the struggle I was charmingly lubricated.”

Nicodemus here lay back on his chair, evidently desirous of our considering this the whole of the story, but he was not to be let off so easily, for presently Longtram, with a wicked twinkle of his eye, chimed in.

“Ay, and what happened next, old Nic--did nothing follow, eh?”

Nic’s countenance assumed an irresolute expression; he saw he was jammed up in the wind, so at a venture he determined to sham deafness.

“Take wine, Lucifer--a glass of Hermitage?”

“With great pleasure,” said his Satanic majesty. The propitiatory libation, however, did not work, for no sooner had his glass touched the mahogany again, than he returned to the charge.

“Now, Mr Nicodemus, since you won’t, I will tell the company the reason of so nice an old gentleman wearing Baltimore flour in his hair instead of perfumed Mareschale powder, and none of the freshest either, let me tell you; why, I have seen three weavels take flight from your august pate since we sat down to dinner.”

Old Nic, seeing he was caught, met the attack with the greatest good humour.

“Why, I will tell the whole truth, Lucifer, if you don’t bother.” (“The devil thank you,” said Longtram.)--“So you must know,” continued Nicodemus, “that I immediately roused the servants, searched the premises in every direction without success--nothing could be seen; but, at the suggestion of my valet, I lit a small spirit lamp, and placed it on the table at my bed-side, on which it pleased him to place my brace of Mantons, loaded with slug, and my naked small sword, so that, thought I, if the thief ventures back, he shall not slip through my fingers again so easily. I do confess that these imposing preparations did appear to me somewhat preposterous, even at the time, as it was not, to say the least of it, very probable that my slippery gentleman would return the same night. However, my servant in his zeal was not to be denied, and I was not so fit to judge as usual, from having missed my customary quantity of wine after dinner the previous day; so, seeing all right, I turned in, thus bristling like a porcupine, and slept soundly until daylight, when I bethought me of getting up. I then rose-slipped on my nightgown--and,”--here Nicodemus laughed more loudly than ever, “as I am a gentleman, my spirit lamp--naked sword--loaded pistols--my diamond breast-pin, and all my clothes, even unto my unmentionables, had disappeared; but what was the cruelest cut of all, my box of Mareschale powder, my patent puff, and all my pomade divine had also vanished; and true enough, as Lucifer says, it so happened that from the delay in the arrival of the running ships, there was not an ounce of either powder or pomatum to be had in the whole town, so I have been driven in my extremity--oh most horrible declension!--to keep my tail on hog’s lard and Baltimore flour ever since.”

“Well but”--persisted Lucifer--“who the deuce was the man in the moon? Come, tell us. And what has become of the queue you so tenderly nourished, for you sport a crop, Master Nic, now, I perceive?”

Here Nicodemus was neither to hold nor to bind; he was absolutely suffocating with laughter, as he shrieked out, with long intervals between.

“Why, the robber was my own favourite body-servant, Crabclaw, after all, and be d----d to him--the identical man who advised the warlike demonstrations; and as for the pigtail, why, on the very second night of the flour and grease, it was so cruelly damaged by a rat while I slept, that I had to amputate the whole affair, stoop and roop, this very morning.” And so saying, the excellent creature fell back in his chair, like to choke from the uproariousness of his mirth, while the tears streamed down his cheeks and washed channels in the flour, as if he had been a tattooed Mandingo.

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XIX. The Last of the Log--Tom Cringle’s Farewell

“And whether we shall meet again, I know not.”

Julius Caesar, VI. 114.

One fine morning about this time, we had just anchored on our return from a cruise, when I received, as I was dressing, a letter from the secretary, desiring me instantly to wait on the Admiral, as I was promoted to the rank of commander, (how I did dance and sing, my eye!) and appointed to the Lotus--Leaf, of eighteen guns, then refitting at the dockyard, and under orders for England.

I accordingly, after calling and making my bow, proceeded to the dockyard to enter on my new command, and I was happy in being able to get Tailtackle and Reefpoint once more removed along with me.

The gunner of Lotus--Leaf having died, Timotheus got an acting warrant, which I rejoice to say was ultimately confirmed, and little Reefy, now a commander in the service, weathered it many a day with me afterwards, both as midshipman and lieutenant.

After seeing every thing in a fair train on board, I applied for a fortnight’s leave, which I got, as the trade which I was to convoy had not yet congregated, nor were they likely to do so before the expiry of this period.

Having paid my respects at the Admiral’s pen, I returned to Kingston. Most of the houses in the lower part of the town are surmounted by a small lookout, as it is called, like a little belfry, and usually furnished with one or more good telescopes, fitted with green blinds. It is the habit of the Kingstonians to resort in great numbers to those gardemange-looking boxes, whenever a strange sail appears in the offing, or any circumstance takes place at sea worth reconnoitring. It was about nine o’clock on a fine morning, and I had taken my stand in one of them, peering out towards the east, but no white speck on the verge of the horizon indicated an approaching sail, so I slewed round the glass to the westward, to have a squint at the goings on amongst the squadron, lying at anchor at Port Royal, about six miles off, then mustering no fewer than eighteen pennants, viz. one line of battle ship, one fifty, five frigates, two corvettes, one ship-sloop, four eighteen gun brigs, three schooners, and a cutter. All was quiet, not even one solitary signal making amongst them; so I again scoured the horizon towards the east, when I noticed a very dashing schooner, which had sailed that morning, as she crept along the Palisadoes. She was lying up the inner channel, taking advantage of the land-wind, in place of staggering away to the southward through the ship-channel, already within the influence of the sea breeze, but which was as yet neutralized close in shore where she was by the terral. The speed of the craft--the rapidity with which she slid along the land with the light air, riveted my attention. On enquiry, I found she was the Carthagenian schooner Josefa. At this moment the splash of oars was heard right below where we stood, and a very roguish-looking craft, also schooner-rigged, about a hundred tons burden apparently, passed rapidly beneath us, tearing up the shining surface of the sleeping harbour, with no fewer than fourteen sweeps. She was very heavily rigged, with her main mast raking over the tafferel, and full of men. I noticed she had a long gun on a pivot, and several carronades mounted. Presently there was a good deal of whispering amongst the group of half-a-dozen gentlemen who were with me in the lookout, who, from their conversation, I soon found were underwriters on the schooner outside.

“Heyday,” said one, “the Antonio is off somewhat suddenly this morning.”

“Where may that schooner, that is sweeping so handsomely down harbour, belong to?” said I to the gentleman who had spoken.

‘To Havanna,’ was the answer; “but I fear he intends to overhaul the Josefa there, and she would be a good prize to him, now since Carthagena has thrown off allegiance to Spain.”

“But he will never venture to infract the neutrality of the waters surely,” rejoined I, “within sight of the squadron too?”

The gentleman I spoke to smiled incredulously; and as I had nothing particular to do for a couple of hours, I resolved to remain and see the issue. In a few minutes, the sea-breeze came thundering down, in half a gale of wind, singing through the rigging of the ships alongside of the wharfs, and making the wooden blinds rattle again. The Antonio laid in her sweeps, spread her canvass in an instant, and was lying-to, off the fort at Port Royal, to land her pass, in little more than half-an-hour from the time she passed us, a distance of no less than seven miles, as she had to sail it. In a minute the jib sheet was again hauled over to leeward, and away she was like an arrow, crowding all sail. I had seldom seen a vessel so weatherly before. In an hour more, she was abreast of the town, and abeam of the Josefa, who, from being cooped up in the narrow inner channel, had, ever since the sea-breeze set down, been bothering with short tacks, about, and about, every minute. Presently the Antonio dashed in through a streak of blue water in the reef, so narrow, that to look at it, I did not think a boat could have passed, and got between the Josefa and Port Royal, when he took in his gaff-topsail, and hauled down his flying-jib, but made no hostile demonstration, beyond keeping dead to leeward, tack for tack with the Josefa; and once, when the latter seemed about to bear up and run past him, I noticed the foot of his foresail lift, and his sails shiver as he came to the wind, as much as to say, “Luff again, my lady, or I’ll fire at you.” It was now clear Josefa did not like her playmate, for she cracked on all the canvass she could carry; and, having tried every other manoeuvre to escape without effect, she at length, with reckless desperation, edged away a point, and flew like smoke through another gap, even smaller and shallower than the one the Antonio had entered by. We all held our breath until she got into blue water again, expecting every moment to see her stick fast, and her masts tumble over the side; but she scraped clear very cleverly, and the next moment was tearing and plunging through the tumbling waves outside of the reefs. Antonio, as I expected, followed her, but all very quietly, still keeping well to leeward, however. Thus they continued for half an hour, running to the southward and eastward, when I noticed the Havanero, who had gradually crept up under the Josefa’s lee-quarter, hoist his colours and pennant, and fire a gun at her. She immediately tacked in great confusion, and made all sail to get back through the canal into the inner channel, with the other schooner close at her heels, blazing away from his long gun as fast as he could load. A Spaniard, who was one of the principal owners of the Josefa’s cargo, happened to be standing beside me in the lookout; at every shot, he would, with a face of the most intense anxiety, while the perspiration hailed off his brow, slap his hands on his thighs, and shrink down on his hams, cowering his head at the same time, as if the shot had been aimed at him, and he was trying to shun it, apostrophizing himself, with an agitated voice, as follows:

“Valga me Dios, que demonio, que demonio! Ah, Pancho Roque, tu es ruinado, mi amigo.” Another shot. “Tu es ruinado, chicatico, tan cierto como navos no son coles.” A third flash. “Oh, rabo de lechon de San Antonio, que es eso, que es eso!”

Neck and neck, however, in came the Josefa, staggering right through the narrow channel once more, persecuted by the Antonio, with the white breakers foaming and flashing close to on each side of her, but by this time there was a third party in the game. I had noticed a lot of signals made in the flag-ship. Presently one of the sloops of war fired a gun, and before the smoke blew off, she was under weigh, with her topsails, spanker, and fore-topmast-staysail set. This was his Majesty’s sloop of war Seaflower, which had slipped from her moorings, and was now crowding all sail in chase of the arrogant Don, who had dared to fire a shot in anger in the sanctuary of British waters. All this while, the Antonio had been so intent on hooking the Carthagenian, that the sloop was nearly up to him before he hove about and gave up the chase; and now the tables were beautifully turned on him, for the Seaflower’s shot was flying over and over him in whole broadsides, and he must have been taken, when, crack, away went the sloop’s foretopgallant mast, which gave the rogue a start. In an hour he was away to windward as far as you could see, and his pursuer and the Josefa were once more at anchor in Port Royal.

That evening I returned to the dockyard, where I found every thing going on with Lotus--Leaf as I could wish. So I returned, after a three days sojourn on board, to Kingston, and next afternoon mounted my horse, or rather a horse that a friend was fool enough to lend me, at the agent’s wharf, with the thermometer at ninety-five in the shade, and cantering off, landed at my aunt Mrs Palma’s mountain residence, where the mercury stood at sixty-two at nightfall, just in time to dress for dinner. I need not say that we had a pleasant party, as Mary was there; so, having rigged very killingly as I thought, I made my appearance at dinner, a mighty man, indeed, with my two epaulets; but to my great disappointment, when I walked into the piazza, not a soul seemed to acknowledge my promotion. How blind people are! thought I. Even my cousins, little creole urchins, dressed in small transparent cambric shifts, tied into a knot over their tails, and with devil the thing else on, seemed to perceive no difference, as they pulled me about, with a volley of “Cousin Taam, what you bring we?”

At length, dinner was announced, and we adjourned from the dark balcony to the dining room. “Come, there is light enough here; my rank will be noticed now, surely--but no, so patience.” The only males of the party were the doctor of the district, two Kingston gentlemen, and Colonel B---- of the Guards; the ladies at dinner being my aunt, Mary, and her younger sister. We sat down all in high glee; I was sitting opposite my dearie. “Deuced strange--neither does she take any notice of my two epaulets;” and I glanced my eye, to be sure that they were both really there. I then, with some small misgiving, stole a look towards the Colonel--a very handsome fellow, with all the ease and polish of a soldier and a gentleman about him. “The devil, it cannot be, surely,” for the black-eyed and black-haired pale face, seemed annoyingly attentive to the militaire. At length this said officer addressed me, “Captain Cringle, do me the honour to take wine.” Mary started at the Captain.

“She gazed, she redden’d like a rose, Syne pale as ony lily.”

Aha, thought I, all right still. She trembled extremely, and her mother at length noticed it, I saw; but all this while, B---- was balancing a land-crab on his silver fork, while, with a wine-glass in his other claw, he was ogling me in some wonderment. I saw the awkwardness of the affair, and seizing a bottle of catchup for one of sercial, I filled my glass with such vehemence, that I spilt a great part of it; but even the colour and flavour did not recover me; so, with a face like a northwest moon, I swilled off the potion, and instantly fell back in my chair “Poisoned! by all that is nonsensical--poisoned catchup oh Lord!” and off I started to my bedroom, where, by dint of an ocean of hot water, I got quit of the sauce, and clinching the whole with a caulker of brandy, I returned to the dinner-table a good deal abashed, I will confess, but endeavouring most emphatically all the while to laugh it off as a good jest. But my Mary was flown; she had been ailing for some days, her mother alleged, and she required rest. Presently my aunt rose, and we were left to our bottle, and sorry am I to say it, I bumpered away, from some strong unaccountable impulse, until I got three parts drunk, to the great surprise of the rest of the party, for guzzling wine was not certainly a failing of mine, unless on the strong provocation of good fellowship.

Mary did not appear that evening, and I may as well tell the whole truth, that she was pledged to marry me whenever I got my step; and next morning all this sort of thing was duly communicated to mamma, &c. &c. &c., and I was the happiest, and so forth--all of which, as it concerns no one but myself, if you please, we shall say no more about it.

The beautiful cottage where we were sojourning was situated about three thousand feet above the level of the sea, and half way up the great prong of the Blue Mountains, known by the name of the Liguanea range, which rises behind, and overhangs the city of Kingston. The road to it, after you have ridden about five miles over the hot plain of Liguanea, brings you to Hope estate, where an anatomy of an old watchman greeted me with the negro’s constant solicitation--“Massa, me beg you for one fee-penny.” This youth was, as authentic records show, one hundred and forty years old only.--The Hope is situated in the very gorge of the pass, wherein you have to travel nine miles farther, through most magnificent scenery; at one time struggling among the hot stones of the all but dry river-course; at others, winding along the breezy cliffs, on mule-paths not twelve inches wide, with a perpendicular wall of rock rising five hundred feet above you on one side, while a dark gulf, a thousand feet deep, yawned on the other, from the bottom of which arose the hoarse murmur of the foliage-screened brook. Noble trees spread their boughs overhead, and the most beautiful shrubs and bushes grew and blossomed close at hand, and all was moist, and cool, and fresh, until you turned the bare pinnacle of some limestone-rock, naked as the summit of the Andes, where the hot sun, even through the thin attenuated air of that altitude, would suddenly blaze on you so fiercely, that your eyes were blinded and your face blistered, as if you had been suddenly transported within the influence of a sirocco. Well, now, since you know the road, let us take a walk after breakfast. It shall be a beautiful clear day--not a speck or cloud in the heavens. Mary is with me.

“Well, Tom,” says she, “you were very sentimental last evening.”

“Sentimental! I was deucedly sick, let me tell you--a wineglassful of cold catchup is rather trying even to a lover’s stomach, Mary. Murder, I never was so sick, even in my first cruise in the old Breeze! Bah! Do you know I did not think of you for an hour afterwards?--not until that bumper of brandy stayed my calamity. But come, when shall we be married, Maria? Oh! have done with your blushing and botheration tomorrow or next day? It would not be quite the thing this evening, would it?”

“Tom, you are crazy. Time enough, surely, when we all meet in England.”

“And when may that be?” said I, drawing her arm closer through mine. “No, no--tomorrow I will call on the admiral; and as you are all going to England in the fleet at any rate, I will ask his leave to give you a passage.”

All of which, as I said before, being parish news, we shall drop a veil over it--so a small touch at the scenery again.

Immediately under foot rose several lower ranges of mountains those nearest us, covered with the laurel-looking coffee-bushes, interspersed with negro villages hanging amongst the fruit-trees like clusters of birds nests on the hillside, with a bright green patch of plantain suckers here and there, and a white painted overseer’s house peeping from out the wood, and herds of cattle in the Guinea-grass pieces. Beyond these, stretched out the lovely plain of Liguanea, covered with luxuriant cane-pieces, and groups of negro houses, and Guinea-grass pastures of even a deeper green than that of the canes; and small towns of sugar-works rose every here and there, with their threads of white smoke floating up into the clear sky, while, as the plain receded, the cultivation disappeared, and it gradually became sterile, hot, and sandy, until the Long Mountain hove its back like a whale from out the sea-like level of the plain; while to the right of it appeared the city of Kingston, like a model, with its parade, or place d’armes, in the centre, from which its long lines of hot sandy streets stretched out at right angles, with the military post of Up park camp, situated about a mile and a half to the northward and eastward of the town. Through a tolerably good glass, the church spire looked like a needle, the trees about the houses like bushes, the tall cocoa-nut trees like harebells; a slow crawling black speck here and there denoted a carriage moving along, while waggons, with their teams of eighteen and twenty oxen, looked like so many centipedes. At the camp, the two regiments drawn out on parade, with two nine-pounders on each flank, and their attendant gunners, looked like a red sparkling line, with two black spots at each end, surrounded by small black dots. Presently the red line wavered, and finally broke up, as the regiments wheeled into open column, when the whole fifteen hundred men crawled past three little scarlet spots, denoting the general and his staff. When they began to manoeuvre, each company looked like a single piece in a game at chess; and as they fired by companies, the little tiny puffs of smoke floated up like wreaths of wool, suddenly surmounting and overlaying the red lines, while the light companies breaking away into skirmishers, seemed, for all the world, like two red bricks suddenly cast down, and shattered on the ground, whereby the fragments were scattered all over the green fields, and under the noble trees, the biggest of which looked like small cabbages. At length the line was again formed, and the inspection being over, it broke up once more, and the minute red fragments presently vanished altogether like a nest of ants, the guns, looking like so many barleycorns, under the long lines of barracks, that looked no bigger than houses in a child’s toy. As for the other arm, we of the navy had no reason to glorify ourselves. For, while the review proceeded on shore, a strange man-of-war hove in sight in the offing, looming like a mussel-shell, although she was a forty-four-gun frigate, and ran down before the wind, close to the Palisadoes, or natural tongue of land, which juts out like a bow from Rock Fort, to the eastward of Kingston, and hoops in the harbour, and then lengthens out, trending about five miles due west, where it widens out into a sandy flat, on which the town and forts of Port Royal are situated. She was saluting the admiral when I first saw her. A red spark and a small puff on the starboard side--a puff, but no spark, on the larboard, which was the side farthest from us, but no report from either reached our ears; and presently down came the little red flag, and up went the St George’s ensign, white, with a red cross, while the sails of the gallant craft seemed about the size of those of a little schoolboy’s plaything. After a short interval, the flag ship, a seventy four, lying at Port Royal, returned the salute. She, again, appeared somewhat loftier; she might have been an oyster-shell; while the squadron of four frigates, two sloops of war, and several brigs and schooners, looked like ants in the wake of a beetle. As for the dear little Wave, I can compare her to nothing but a musquitto, and the large 500--ton West Indiamen lying off Kingston, five miles nearer, were but as small cock-boats to the eye. In the offing the sea appeared like ice, for the waves were not seen at all, and the swell could only be marked by the difference in the reflection of the sun’s rays as it rose and fell, while a hot haze hung over the whole, making every thing indistinct, so that the water blended into sky, without the line of demarcation being visible. But even as we looked forth on this most glorious scene, a small black cloud rose to windward. At this time we were both sitting on the grass on a most beautiful bank, beneath an orange-tree--the ominous appearance increased in size--the sea breeze was suddenly stifled--the swelling sails of the frigate that had first saluted, fell, and, as she rolled, flattened in against the masts the rustling of the green leaves overhead ceased.

The cloud rolled onward from the east, and spread out, and out, as it sailed in from seaward, and on, and on, until it gradually covered the whole scene from our view, (shipping, and harbour, and town, and camp, and sugar estates,) boiling and rolling in black eddies under our feet. Anon the thunder began to grumble, and the zigzag lightning to fork out from one dark mass into another, while all, where we sat, was bright and smiling under the unclouded noon-day sun. This continued for half an hour, when at length the sombre appearance of the clouds below us brightened into a sea of white fleecy vapour like wool, which gradually broke away into detached masses, discovering another layer of still thinner vapour underneath, which again parted, disclosing through the interstices a fresh gauze-like veil of transparent mist, through which the lower ranges of hills, and the sugar estates, and the town and shipping, were once more dimly visible; but this in turn vanished, and the clouds, attracted by the hills, floated away, and hung around them in festoons, and gradually rose and rose until presently we were enveloped in mist, and Mary spoke. “Tom, there will be thunder here what shall we do?”

“Poo, never mind. Mary, you have a conductor on the house.”

“True,” said she; “but the servants, when the post that supported it was blown down t’other day, very judiciously unlinked the rods, and now, since I remember me, they are, to use your phrase, ‘stowed away’ below the house;” and so they were, sure enough. However, we had no more thunder, and soon the only indications of the spent storm were the red discoloured appearance of the margin of the harbour, from the rush of muddy water off the land, and the chocolate colour of the previously snow-white sandy roads, that now twisted through the plain like black snakes, and a fleecy dolphin-shaped cloud here and there stretching out, and floating horizontally in the blue sky, as if it had been hooked to the precipitous mountain tops above us. Next day it was agreed that we should all return to Kingston, and the day after that, we proceeded to Mr Bangs’s Pen, on the Spanish Town road, as a sort of halfway house, or stepping stone to his beautiful residence in St Thomas in the Vale, where we were all invited to spend a fortnight. Our friend himself was on the other side of the island, but he was to join us in the valley, and we found our comforts carefully attended to; and as the day after we had set up our tent at the Pen was to be one of rest to my aunt, I took the opportunity of paying my respects to the admiral, who was then careening at his mountain retreat in the vicinity with his family. Accordingly, I took horse, and rode along the margin of the great lagoon, on the Spanish Town road, through tremendous defiles; and after being driven into a watchman’s hut by the rain, I reached the house, and was most graciously received by Sir Samuel Semaphore and his lady, and their lovely daughters. Oh, the most splendid women that ever were built! The youngest is now, I believe, the prime ornament of the Scottish Peerage; and I never can forget the pleasure I so frequently experienced in those days in the society of this delightful family. The same evening I returned to the Pen. On my way I fell in with three officers in white jackets, and broad-brimmed straw hats, wading up to the waist amongst the reeds of the lagoon, with guns held high above their heads. They were shooting ducks, it seemed; and their negro servants were heard ploutering and shouting amidst the thickets of the crackling reeds, while their dogs were swimming all about them.

“Hillo!” shouted the nearest--“Cringle, my lad--whither bound? how is Sir Samuel and Lady Semaphore, eh? Capital sport, ten brace of teal there”--and the spokesman threw two beautiful birds ashore to me. This wise man of the bulrushes was no less a personage than Sir Jeremy Mayo, the commander of the forces, one of the bravest fellows in the army, and respected and beloved by all who ever knew him, but a regular dare devil of an Irishman, who, not satisfied with his chance of yellow fever on shore, had thus chosen to hunt for it with his staff, in the Caymanas Lagoon.

Next morning, we set out in earnest on our travels for St Thomas in the Vale, in two of our friend Bang’s gigs, and my aunt’s ketureen, laden with her black maiden and a lot of bandboxes, while two mounted servants brought up the rear, and my old friend Jupiter, who had descended, not from the clouds, but from the excellent Mr Fyall, who was by this time gathered to his fathers, to Massa Aaron, rode a musket shot ahead of the convoy to clear away, or give notice of any impediments, of wagons or carts, or droves of cattle, that might be meeting us.

After driving five miles or so, we reached the seat of government, Spanish Town. Here we stopped at the Speaker’s house--by the way, one of the handsomest and most agreeable men I ever saw--intending to proceed in the afternoon to our destination. But the rain in the forenoon fell so heavily, that we had to delay our journey until next morning; and that afternoon I spent in attending the debates in the House of Assembly, where every thing was conducted with much greater decorum than I ever saw maintained in the House of Commons, and no great daring in the assertion either. The Hall itself, fitted with polished mahogany benches, was handsome and well aired, and between it and the grand court, as it is called, occupying the other end of the building, which was then sitting, there is a large cool saloon, generally in term time well filled with wigless lawyers and their clients. The House of Assembly (this saloon and the court-house forming one side of the square) is situated over against the Government House; while another side is occupied by a very handsome temple, covering in a statue erected to Lord Rodney, the saviour of the Island, as he is always called, from having crushed the fleet of Count de Grasse.

At length, at grey-dawn the next day, as the report of the morning gun came booming along the level plain from Port Royal, we weighed and finally started on our cruise. As we drove up towards St Thomas in the Vale, from Spanish Town, along the hot sandy road, the plain gradually roughened into small rocky eminences, covered with patches of bushes here and there, with luxuriant Guinea-grass growing in the clefts; the road then sank between abrupt little hills the Guinea corn fields began to disappear, the grass became greener, the trees rose higher, the air felt fresher and cooler, and proceeding still farther, the hills on either side swelled into mountains, and became rocky and precipitous, and drew together, as it were, until they appeared to impend over us. We had now arrived at the gorge of the pass, leading into the valley, through which flowed a most beautiful limpid clear blue stream, along the margin of which the road wound, while the tree-clothed precipices rose five hundred feet perpendicularly on each brink. Presently we crossed a wooden bridge, supported by a stone pier in the centre, when Jupiter pricked a-head to give notice of the approach of waggons, that our cavalcade might haul up, out of danger, into some nook in the rock, to allow the lumbersome teams to pass.

“What is that?”--I was driving my dearie in the leading gig--“is that a pistol shot?” It was the crack of the long whip carried by the negro waggoner, reverberated from hill to hill, and from cliff to cliff; and presently the father of gods came thundering down the steep acclivity we were ascending.

“Massa, draw up into dat corner; draw up.”

I did as I was desired, and presently the shrill whistle of the negro waggoners, and the increasing sharpness of the reports of their loud whips, the handles of which were as long as fishing-rods, and their wild exclamations to their cattle, to whom they addressed themselves by name, as if they had been reasonable creatures, gave notice of the near approach of a train of no fewer than seven waggons, each with three drivers, eighteen oxen, three hogsheads of sugar, and two puncheons of rum.

Come, thought I--if the negroes are overworked, it is more than the bullocks are, at all events. They passed us with abundance of yelling and cracking, and as soon as the coast was clear, we again pursued our way up the ravine, than which nothing could be more beautiful or magnificent. On our right hand now rose, almost perpendicularly, the everlasting rocks, to a height of a thousand feet, covered with the richest foliage that imagination can picture, while here and there a sharp steeple-like pinnacle of grey-stone, overgrown with lichens, shot up, and out from the face of them, into the blue sky, mixing with the tall forest trees that overhung the road, festooned with ivy and withes of different kinds, like the rigging of a ship, round which the tendrils of many a beautiful wild-flower crept twining up, while all was fresh with the sparkling dew that showered down on us, with every breath of wind, like rain. On our left foamed the roaring river, and on the other brink the opposite bank rose equally precipitously, clothed also with superb trees, that spread their blending boughs over the chasm, until they wove themselves together with those that grew on the side we were on, qualifying the noonday fierceness of a Jamaica sun into a green cool twilight, while the long misty reaches of the blue river, with white foaming rapids here and there, and the cattle wading in them, lengthened out beneath in the distance. Oh! the very look of it refreshed one unspeakably.

Presently a group of half-a-dozen country Buccras-overseers, or coffee-planters, most likely, or possibly larger fish than either--hove in sight, all in their blue-white jean trowsers, and long Hessian boots pulled up over them, and new blue square-cut, bright-buttoned coatees, and thread-bare silk broad-brimmed hats. They dashed past us on goodish nags, followed at a distance of three hundred yards by a covey of negro-servants, mounted on mules, in white Osnaburg trowsers, with a shirt or frock over them, no stockings, each with one spur, and the stirrup-iron held firmly between the great and second toes, while a snow-white sheep’s fleece covered their massas portmanteaus, strapped on to the mail pillion behind. We drove on for about seven miles, after entering the pass, the whole scenery of which was by far the finest thing I had ever seen, the precipices on each side becoming more and more rugged and abrupt as we advanced, until all at once we emerged from the chasm on the parish of St Thomas in the Vale, which opened on us like a magical illusion, in all its green luxuriance and freshness. But by this time we were deucedly tired, and Massa Aaron’s mansion, situated on its little airy hill above a sea of canes, which rose and fell before the passing breeze like the waves of the ocean, was the most consolatory object in the view; and thither we drove is fast as our wearied horses could carry us, and found every thing most carefully prepared for our reception. Having dressed, we had a glorious dinner, lots of good wine; and, the happiest of the happy, I tumbled into bed, dreaming of leading a division of line-of-battle ships into action, and of Mary, and of our eldest son being my first lieutenant.

“Massa”--quoth Jupiter--“you take cup of coffee, dis marning, massa?”

“Thank you--certainly.”

It was by this time grey dawn. My window had been left open the evening before, when it was hot and sultry enough, but it was now cold and damp, and a wetting mist boiled in through the open sash, like rolling wreaths of white smoke.

“What is that--where are we in the North Sea, or on the top of Mont Blanc? Why, clouds may be all in your way, Massa Jupiter, but....”

“Cloud!” rejoined the Deity--“him no more den marning fag, massa; always hab him over de Vale in de morning, until de sun melt him. And where is you?--why, you is in Massa Aaron house, here in St Thomas in de Vale--and Miss.”

“Miss”--said I--“what Miss?”

“Oh, for you Miss,” rejoined Jupiter with a grin, “Miss Mary up and dress already, and de horses are at de door; him wait for you to ride wid him before breakfast, massa, and to see de clearing of de fag.”

“Ride before breakfast!--see the clearing of the fog!” grumbled I. “Romantic it may be, but consumedly inconvenient.” However, my knighthood was at stake; so up I got, drank my coffee, dressed, and adjourned to the piazza, where my adorable was all ready rigged with riding-habit and whip; straightway we mounted, she into her side saddle with her riding-habit, and who knows how many petticoats beneath her, while I, Pilgarlic, embarked in thin jean trowsers upon a cold, damp, indeed wet, saddle, that made me shiver again. But I was understood to be in love; ergo, I was expected to be agreeable. However, a damp saddle and a thin pair of trowsers allays one’s ardour a good deal too. But if any one had seen the impervious fog in which we sat--why, you could not see a tree three yards from you--a cabbage looked like a laurel bush, and Sneezer became a dromedary, and the negroes passing the little gate to their work were absolute Titans. Boom, a long reverberating noise thundered in the distance, and amongst the hills, gradually dying away in a hollow rumble. “The admiral tumbling down the hatchway, Tom--the morning gun fired at Port Royal,” said Mary; and so it was.

The fire-flies were still glancing amongst the leaves of the beautiful orange-trees in front of the house; but we could see no farther, the whole view being shrouded under the thick watery veil which rolled and boiled about us, sometimes thick, and sometimes thinner; hovering between a mist and small rain, and wetting ones hair, and face, and clothes, most completely. We descended from the eminence on which the house stood, rode along the level at the foot of it, and, after a canter of a couple of miles, we began to ascend a bridle-path, through the Guinea-grass pastures, which rose rank and soaking wet, as high as one’s saddlebow, drenching me to the skin, in the few patches where I was not wet before. All this while the fog continued as thick as ever; at length we suddenly rose above it--rode out of it, as it were.

St Thomas in the Vale is, as the name denotes, a deep valley, about ten miles long by six broad, into which there is but one inlet comfortably passable for carriages--the road along which we had come. The hills, by which it is surrounded on all sides, are, for the most part, covered with Guinea--grass pastures on the lower ranges, and with coffee plantations and provision grounds higher up. When we had ridden clear of the mist, the sun was shining brightly overhead, and every thing was fresh and sparkling with dewdrops near us; but the vale was still concealed under the wool-like sea of white mist, only pierced here and there by a tall cocoa--nut tree rising above it, like the mast of a foundered vessel. But anon the higher ridges of the grass pieces appeared, as the fog undulated in fleecy waves in the passing breeze, which, as it rose and sank like the swell of the ocean, disclosed every now and then the works on some high-lying sugar estate, and again rolled over them like the tide covering the shallows of the sea, while shouts of laughter, and the whooping of the negroes in the fields, rose from out the obscurity, blended with the signal cries of the sugar boilers to the stockholemen of “Fire, fire grand copper, grand copper,” and the ca cawing, like so many rooks, of the children driving the mules and oxen in the mills, and the everlasting splashing and panting of the water-wheel of the estate immediately below us, and the crashing and smashing of the canes, as they were crushed between the mill rollers; and the cracking of the wain and waggonmen’s long whips, and the rumbling, and creaking, and squealing of the machinery of the mills, and of the carriage-wheels; while the smoke from the unseen chimney stalks of the sugar-works rose whirling darkly up through the watery veil, like spinning waterspouts, from out the bosom of the great deep. Anon the veil rose, and we were once more gradually enveloped in clouds. Presently the thickest of the mist floated up, and rose above us like a gauze-like canopy of fleecy clouds overhanging the whole level plain, through which the red quenched sun, which a moment before was flaming with intolerable brightness overhead, suddenly assumed the appearance of a round red globe in an apothecary’s window, surrounded by a broad yellow sickly halo, which dimly lit up, as if the sun had been in eclipse, the cane-fields, then in arrow, as it is called, (a lavender coloured flower, about three feet long, that shoots out from the top of the cane, denoting that it is mature, and fit to be ground,) and the Guinea-grass plats, and the nice-looking houses of the bushas, and the busy mill-yards, and the noisy gangs of negroes in the field, which were all disclosed, as if by the change of a scene.

At length, in love as we were, we remembered our breakfast; and beginning to descend, we encountered in the path a gang of about three dozen little glossy black piccaninies going to their work, the oldest not above twelve years of age, under the care of an old negress. They had all their little packies, or calabashes, on their heads, full of provisions; while an old cook, with a bundle of fagots on her head, and a fire stick in her hand, brought up the rear, her province being to cook the food which the tiny little work-people carried. Presently one or two book-keepers, or deputy white superintendents on the plantation, also passed,--strong healthy looking young fellows, in stuff jackets and white trowsers, and all with good cudgels in their hands. The mist, which had continued to rise up and up, growing thinner and thinner as it ascended, now rent overhead about the middle of the vale, and the masses, like scattered clouds, drew towards the ledge of the hills that surrounded it, like floating chips of wood in a tub of water, sailing in long shreds towards @he most precipitous peaks, to which as they ascended they attached themselves, and remained at rest. And now the fierce sun, reasserting his supremacy, shone once more in all his tropical fierceness right down on the steamy earth, and all was glare, and heat, and bustle.

Next morning, I rode out at daylight along with Mr Bang, who had arrived on the previous evening. We stopped to breakfast at a property of his about four miles distant, and certainly we had no reason to complain of our fare-fresh fish from the gully, nicely roasted yams, a capital junk of salt beef, a dish I always glory in on shore, although a hint of it at sea makes me quake; and, after our repast, I once more took the road to see the estate, in company of my learned friend. There was a long narrow saddle, or ridge of limestone, about five hundred feet high, that separated the southern quarter of the parish from the northern. The cane-pieces, and cultivated part of the estate, lay in a dead level of deep black mould, to the southward of this ridge, from out which the latter rose abruptly. The lower part of the ridge was clothed with the most luxuriant orange, shaddock, lime, star-apple, breadfruit, and custard apple-trees, besides numberless others that I cannot particularize, while the summit was shaded by tall forest timber. Proceeding along a rough bridle path for the space of two miles, we attained the highest part of the saddle, and turned sharp off to the right, to follow a small footpath that had been billed in the bush, being the lines recently run by the land-surveyor between Mr Bang’s property and the neighbouring estate, the course of which mine host was desirous of personally inspecting. We therefore left our horses in charge of the servants, who had followed us running behind, holding on by the tails of our horses, and began to brush through the narrow path cut in the hot underwood. After walking a hundred yards or so, we arrived at the point where the path ended abruptly, abutting against a large tree that had been felled, the stump of which remained, being about three feet high, and at least five in diameter. Mr Bang immediately perched himself on it to look about him, to see the lay of the land over the sea of brushwood. I remained below, complaining loudly of the heat and confined air of my situation, and swabbing all the while most energetically, when I saw my friend start.

“Zounds, Tom, look behind you!” We had nothing but our riding switches in our hands. A large snake, about ten feet long, had closed up the path in our rear, sliding slowly from one branch to another, and hissing and striking out its forked tongue, as it twisted itself, at the height of my head from the ground, amongst the trees and bushes, round and round about, occasionally twining its neck round a tree as thick as my body, on one side of the path, and its tail round another, larger in girth than my leg, on the other; when it would, with prodigious strength, but the greatest ease, and the most oily smoothness, bend the smaller tree like a hoop, until the trunks nearly touched, although growing full six feet asunder; as if a tackle fall, or other strong purchase, had been applied; but continuing all the while it was putting forth its power, to glide soapily along, quite unconcernedly, and to all appearance as pliant as a leather thong,--shooting out its glancing neck, and glowering about with its little blasting fiery eyes,--and sliding the forepart of the body onwards without pausing, as if there had been no strain on the tail whatsoever, until the stems of the two trees were at length brought together, when it let the smaller go with a loud spank, that shook the dew off the neighbouring branches, and the perspiration from Tom Cringle’s forehead-whose nerves were not more steady than the tree-like rain, and frightened all the birds in the neighbourhood; while it, the only unstartled thing, continued steadily and silently on its course,--turning and looking at us, and poking its head within arm’s length, and raising it with a loud hiss, and a threatening attitude, on our smallest motion.

“A modern group of the Laocoon--lord, what a neckcloth we shall both have presently!” thought I.

Meanwhile, the serpent seemed to be emboldened from our quietude, and came so near, that I thought I perceived the hot glow of its breath, with its scales glancing like gold and silver, and its diamond-like eyes sparkling; but all so still and smooth, that unless it were an occasional hiss, its motions were noiseless as those of an apparition.

At length the devil came fairly between us, and I could stand it no longer. We had both up to this period been really and truly fascinated; but the very instant that the coast was clear in my wake, by the snake heading me, and gliding between me and Mr Bang, my manhood forsook me all of a heap, and, turning tail, I gave a loud shout, and started off down the path at speed, never once looking behind, and leaving Bang to his fate, perched on his pedestal, like the laughing satyr; however, the next moment I heard him thundering in my rear. My panic had been contagious, for the instant my sudden motion had frightened the snake out of his way, he started forth after me at speed, and away we both raced, until a stump caught my foot, and both of us, after flying through the air a couple of fathoms or so, trundled head over heels, over and over, shouting and laughing. Pegtop now came up to us in no small surprise, but the adventure was at an end, and we returned to Mr Bangs to dinner.

Here we had an agreeable addition to our party in Sir Jeremy Mayo, and the family of the Admiral, Sir Samuel Semaphore, his lady, his two most amiable daughters, and the husband of the eldest.

Next morning we rode out to breakfast with a very worthy man, Mr Stornaway, the overseer of Mount Olive estate, in the neighbourhood of which there were several natural curiosities to be seen. Although the extent of our party startled him a good deal, he received us most hospitably. He ushered us into the piazza, where breakfast was laid, when uprose ten thousand flies from the breakfast table, that was covered with marmalade, and guava jelly, and nicely roasted yams, and fair white bread; and the fragrant bread-fruit roasted in the ashes, and wrapped in plantain leaves; while the chocolate and coffee pots--the latter equal in cubic content to one of the Wave’s water-butts emulated each other in the fragrance of the odours which they sent forth; and avocado pears, and potted calipiver, and cold pork hams, and really, I cannot repeat the numberless luxuries that flanked the main body of the entertainment on a side table, all strong provocative to fall to.

“You, Quacco--Peter--Monkey”--shouted Stornaway--“where are you, with your brushes; don’t you see the flies covering the table?” The three sable pages forthwith appeared, each with a large green branch in his hand, which they waved over the viands, and we sat down and had a most splendid breakfast. Lady Semaphore and I--for I have always had a touch of the old woman in me--were exceedingly tickled with the way in which the piccaniny mummas, that is, the mothers of the negro children, received our friend Bang. After breakfast, a regular muster took place under the piazza of all the children on the property, under eight years of age, accompanied by their mothers.

“Ah, Massa Bang,” shouted one, “why you no come see we oftener? you forget your poor piccaniny hereabout.”

“You grow foolish old man now,” quoth another.

“You no wort--you go live in town, an no care about we who make Massa money here; you no see we all tarving here;” and the nice cleanly looking fat matron, who made the remark, laughed loudly.

He entered into the spirit of the affair with great kindliness, and verily, before he got clear, his pockets were as empty as a half-pay lieutenant’s. His fee pennies were flying about in all directions.

After breakfast we went to view the natural bridge, a band of rock that connects two hills together, and beneath which a roaring stream rushes, hid entirely by the bushes and trees that grow on each side of the ravine. We descended by a circuitous footpath into the river course, and walked under the natural arch, and certainly never was any thing finer; a regular Der Freyschutz dell. The arch overhead was nearly fifty feet high, and the echo was superb, as we found, when the sweet voices of the ladies, blending in softest harmony--(lord, how fine you become, Tom!)--in one of Moore’s melodies, were reflected back on us at the close with the most thrilling distinctness; while a stone, pitched against any of the ivy-like creepers, with which the face of the rock was covered, was sure to dislodge a whole cloud of birds, and not infrequently a slow-sailing white-winged owl. Shortly after the Riomagno Gully, as it is called, passes this most interesting spot, it sinks, and runs for three miles under ground, and again reappears on the surface, and gurgles over the stones, as if nothing had happened. By the by, this is a common vagary of nature in Jamaica. For instance, the Rio Cobre, I think it is, which, after a subterranean course of three miles, suddenly gushes out of the solid rock at Bybrook estate, in a solid cube of clear cold water, three feet in diameter; and I remember, in a cruise that I had at another period of my life, in the leeward part of the Island, we came to an estate, where the supply of water for the machinery rose up within the bounds of the mill-dam itself, into which there was no flow, with such force, that above the spring, if I might so call it, the bubbling water was projected into a blunt cone, like the bottom of a cauldron, the apex of which was a foot higher than the level of the pond, although the latter was eighteen feet deep.

After an exceedingly pleasant day we returned home, and next morning, when I got out of bed, I complained of a violent itching and pain, a sort of nondescript sensation, a mixture of pain and pleasure in my starboard great toe, and on reconnoitring, I discovered it to be a good deal inflamed on the ball, round a blue spot about the size of a pinhead. Pegtop had come into the room, and while he was placing my clothes in order, I asked him “What this could be--gout, think you, Massa Pegtop--gout?”

“Gote, massa--gote--no, no, him chiger, massa--chiger--little something like one flea; poke him head under de kin, dere lay egg; ah, great luxury to creole gentleman and lady, dat chiger; sweet pain, creole miss say--nice for cratch him, him say.”

“Why, it may be a creole luxury, Pegtop, but I wish you would relieve me of it.”

“Surely, massa surely, if you wish it,” said Pegtop, in some surprise at my want of taste. “Lend me your penknife den, massa;” and he gabbled away as he extracted from my flesh the chiger bag-like a blue pill in size and colour.

“Oh, massa, top till you marry creole wife,--she will tell you me say true; ah, daresay Miss Mary himself love chiger to tickle him--to be sure him love to be tickle--him love to be tickle--ay, all Creole miss love to be tickle--he, he, he!”

By agreement, Mr Bang and I met Mr Stornaway this morning, in order to visit some other estates together, and during our ride I was particularly gratified by his company. He was a man of solid and very extensive acquirements, and far above what his situation in life at that time led one to expect. When I revisited the island some years afterwards, I was rejoiced to find that his intrinsic worth and ability had floated him up into a very extensive business, and I believe he is now a man of property. I rather think he is engaged in some statistical work connected with Jamaica, which, I am certain, will do him credit whenever it appears. Odd enough, the very first time I saw him, I said I was sure he would succeed in the world; and I am glad to find I was a true prophet. To return: Our chief object at present was to visit a neighbouring estate, the overseer of which was, we were led to believe from a message sent to Mr Bang, very ill with fever. He was a most respectable young man, Mr Stomaway told me, a Swede by birth, who had came over to England with his parents at the early age of eight years, where both he and his cousin Agatha had continued, until he embarked for the West Indies. This was an orphan girl whom his father had adopted, and both of them, as he had often told Mr Stornaway, had utterly forgotten their Swedish,--in fact, they understood no language but English at the time he embarked. I have been thus particular, from a very extraordinary phenomenon that occurred immediately, preceding his dissolution, of which I was a witness.

We rode up in front of the door, close to the fixed manger, where the horses and mules belonging to the busha are usually fed, and encountered a negro servant on a mule, with an umbrella-case slung across his back, and a portmanteau behind him, covered with the usual sheep’s fleece, and holding a saddle horse.

“Where is your master?” said Mr Bang.

“De dactor is in de hose,” replied quashie. “Busha dere upon dying.”

We ascended the rocky unhewn steps, and entered the cool, dark hall, smelling strong of camphor, and slid over the polished floors towards an open door, that led into the back piazza, where we were received by the head book-keeper and carpenter. They told us that the overseer had been seized three days before with fever, and was now desperately ill; and presently the doctor came forth out of the sick-room.

“Poor Wedderfelt is fast going, sir--cold at the extremities already very bad fever--the bilious remittent of the country, of the worst type.”

All this while the servants, male and female, were whispering to each other; while a poor little black fellow sat at the door of the room, crying bitterly--this was the overseer’s servant. We entered the room. which was darkened from the jealousies being, all shut, except one of the uppermost, which happening to be broken, there was a strong pencil of light cast across the head of the bed where the sick man lay while the rest of the room was involved in gloom.

The sufferer seemed in the last stage of yellow fever; his skin was a bright yellow, his nose sharp, and his general features very much pinched. His head had been shaven, and there was a handkerchief bound round it over a plantain leaf, the mark of the blister coming low down on his forehead, where the skin was shrivelled like dry parchment apparently it had not risen. There was also a blister on his chest. He was very restless, clutching the bedclothes, and tossing his limbs about; his mouth was ulcerated, and blood oozed from the corners; his eyes were a deep yellow, with the pupil much dilated, and very, lustrous; he was breathing with a heavy moaning noise when we entered, and looked wildly round, mistaking Mr Bang and me for some other persons. Presently he began to speak very quickly, and to lift one of his hands repeatedly close to his face, as if there was something in it he wished to look at. I presently saw that it held a miniature of a fair haired, blue-eyed Scandinavian girl; but apparently he could not see it, from the increasing dimness of his eyes, which seemed to distress him greatly. After a still minute, during which no sound was heard but his own heavy breathing, he again began to speak very rapidly, but no one in the room could make out what he said. I listened attentively--it struck me is being like--I was certain of it--it was Swedish, which in health he had entirely forgotten, but now in his dying moments vividly remembered. Alas, it was a melancholy and a moving sight, to perceive all the hitherto engrossing thoughts and incidents of his youth and manhood, all save the love of one dear object, suddenly vanish from the tablet of his memory, ground away and abrased, as it were, by his great agony--or like worthless rubbish, removed from above some beautiful ancient inscription, which for ages it had hid, disclosing in all their primeval freshness, sharp cut into his dieing heart, the long smothered, but never to be obliterated impressions of his early, childhood. I could plainly distinguish the name Agatha, whenever he peered with fast glazing eyes on the miniature. All this while a nice little brown child was lying playing with his watch and seals on the bed beside him, while a handsome coloured girl, a slight young creature, apparently its mother, sat on the other side of the dying man, supporting his head on her lap, and wetting his mouth every now and then with a cloth dipped in brandy.

As he raised the miniature to his face, she would gently endeavour to turn away his hand, that he might not look at one whom she, poor thing, no doubt considered was usurping the place in his fluttering heart, that she long fancied had been filled by herself solely; and at other times she would vainly try to coax it out of his cold hand, but the dieing grasp was now one of iron, and her attempts evidently discomposed the departing sinner; but all was done kindly and quietly, and a flood of tears would every now and then stream down her cheeks, as she failed in her endeavours, or as the murmured, gasped name, Agatha, reached her ear.

“Ah!” said she, “him heart riot wid me now--it far away in him own country, him never will make me yeerie what him say again no more.”

Oh, woman, woman! who can fathom that heart of thine! By this time the hiccup grew stronger, and all at once he sat up strong in his bed without assistance, “light as if he felt no wound;” but immediately thereafter gave a strong shudder, ejecting from his mouth a jet of dark matter like the grounds of chocolate, and fell back dead whereupon the negroes began to howl and shriek in such a horrible fashion, that we were glad to leave the scene.

Next day, when we returned to attend the poor fellow’s funeral, we found a complete bivouac of horses and black servants below the trees in front of the house, which was full of neighbouring planters and overseers, all walking about, and talking, and laughing, as if it had been a public meeting on parish business. Some of them occasionally went into the room to look at the body as it lay in the open coffin, the lid of which was at length screwed down, and the corpse carried on four negroes shoulders to its long home, followed by the brown girl and all the servants, the latter weeping and howling,--but she, poor thing, said not a word, although her heart seemed, from the convulsive heaving of her bosom, like to burst. He was buried under a neighbouring orange-tree, the service being read by the Irish carpenter of the estate, who got half a page into the marriage service by mistake before either he or any one else noticed he was wrong.

Three days after this the admiral extended my leave for a fortnight, which I spent in a tour round this most glorious island with friend Aaron, whose smiling face, like the sun, (more like the nor’west moon in a fog, by the by,) seemed to diffuse warmth, and comfort, and happiness, wherever he went, while Sir Samuel and his charming family, and the general, and my dearie, and her aunt, returned home; and after a three weeks philandering, I was married, and all that sort of thing, and a week afterwards embarked with my treasure for I had half a million of dollars on freight, as well as my own particular jewel; and don’t grin at the former, for they gave me a handsome sum, and helped to rig us when we got to Ould England, where Lotus--Leaf was paid off, and I settled for a time on shore, the happiest, &c. &c. &c., until some years afterwards, when the wee Cringles began to tumble home so deucedly fast, that I had to cut and run, and once more betake myself to the salt sea. My aunt and her family returned at the same time to England, in a merchant ship under my convoy, and became our neighbours. Bang also got married soon after to Miss Lucretia Wagtail, by whom he got the Slap estate. But old Gelid and my other allies remain, I believe, in single blessedness until this hour.

MY TALE is told--my yarn is ended,--and were I to spin it longer, I fear it would be only bending it “end for end;” yet still I linger, “like the sough of an auld sang” on the ear, loath to pronounce that stern heart crushing word, that yet “has been, and must be,” and which, during my boisterous and unsettled morning, has been, alas! a too familiar one with me. I hope I shall always bless Heaven for my fair Blinks, although, as the day has wore on, I have had my own share of lee currents, hard gales, and foul weather; and many an old and dear friend has lately swamped alongside of me, while few new ones have shoved out to replace them. But suffering, that scathes the heart, does not always make it callous; and I feel much of the woman hanging about mine still, even now, when the tide is on the turn with me, and the iron voice of the inexorable First--Lieutenant, Time, has sung out, “Strike the bell eight,”--every chime smiting on my soul as if an angel spoke, to warn me, that my stormy forenoon watch is at length over--that the sun, now passing the meridian, must soon decline towards the western horizon, and who shall assure himself of a cloudless setting.

I have, in very truth, now reached the summit of the bald spray washed promontory, and stand on the slippery ledge of the cliff, that trembles to the thundering of the surge beneath; but the plunge must be made--so at once, Farewell all hands, and God bless ye. If, while chucking the cap about at a venture--but I hope and trust there has been no such thing--it has alighted on the head of some ancient ally, and pinched in any the remotest degree, I hereby express my most sincere and heartfelt regret; and to such a one I would say, as he said, who wrote for all time,

“I have shot Mine arrow o’er the house, and hurt my brother.”

Thus I cut my stick while the play is good, and before the public gets wearied of me; and, as for the Log, it is now launched, swim, or founder; if those things be good, it will float from its own buoyancy; if they be naught, let it sink at once and for ever--all that Tom Cringle expects at the hands of his countrymen is--A CLEAR STAGE, AND NO FAVOUR.

THE END.

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