At any rate he was safe on board the steamer, when a middle-aged female, well dressed, but evidently arrayed in haste, and with a face crimson with hard running, came panting down to the steamer, and rushed on board. Seizing upon the captain, she pointed out her husband, who had taken refuge behind the other passengers at a respectful distance; she declared that she had never consented to his going away, and demanded that his body should be instantly delivered up to her. The husband was appealed to, but preferred staying where he was. The captain produced the passport, perfectly _en règle_, and the lady made a rush at the document, which was torn in half in the scuffle. All other means failing, she made a sudden dash at her husband, probably intending to carry him off by main force. He ran for his life, and there was a steeplechase round the deck, among benches, bales, and coils of rope; while the passengers and the crew cheered first one and then the other, till they could not speak for laughing. The husband was all but caught once; but a benevolent passenger kicked a camp-stool in the lady’s way, and he got a fresh start, which he utilized by climbing up the ladder to the paddle-box. His wife tried to follow him, but the shouts of laughter which the black men raised at seeing her performances were too much for her, and she came down again. Here the captain interposed, and put her ashore, where she stood like black-eyed Susan till the vessel was far from the wharf, not waving her lily hand, however, but shaking her clenched fist in the direction of the fugitive. To return to our voyage to the Isle of Pines.—All the afternoon the steamer threaded her way cautiously among the coral-reefs which rose almost to the surface. Sometimes there seemed scarcely room to pass between them, and by night navigation would have been impossible. We were just in the place where Columbus and his companions arrived on their expedition along the Cuban coast, to find out what countries lay beyond. They sailed by day, and lay to at night, till their patience was worn out. Another day or two of sailing would have brought them to where the coast trends northwards; but they turned back, and Columbus died in the belief that Cuba was the eastern extremity of the continent of Asia. The Spaniards call these reefs “cayos,” and we have altered the name to “keys,” such as _Key West_ in Florida, and _Ambergris Key_ off Belize. It was after sunset, and the phosphorescent animals were making the sea glitter like molten metal, when we reached the Isle of Pines, and steamed slowly up the river, among the mangroves that fringe the banks, to the village of Nueva Gerona, the port of the island. It consisted of two rows of houses thatched with palm-leaves, and surrounded by wide verandahs; and between them a street of unmitigated mud.