I had an electric battery which I frequently took into the steerage to astonish the natives. When I first put a silver piece in a basin of water and told them the man taking it out could keep it, what a rush there was! There was one would-be clever clown who was perfectly willing to test the power of the battery, but was so clever he never would take hold of both handles at once. He dodged around for two or three days greatly pleased with his sharpness, but I determined to have him some day and have him hard when I got him. So one morning when dancing about as usual he happened to be barefooted. Apparently by accident, I upset the basin of water over the deck, making it a good conductor, then accepting his offer to try the machine by holding one handle, I dropped the other on the wet deck and gave him the benefit of the whole power of the battery. He let one terrific yell, then stood rooted to the deck speechless for a moment; then gave vent to a series of whoops that would have made the fortune of a Comanche Indian. When freed from the current the clever fellow made a break for the steerage and never appeared again at any of my electric seances. All those ignorants insisted that my battery was surely el diablo. After eighteen days we cast anchor in St. Thomas harbor, and pleasant as our voyage had been we were glad to see land. We were to stop a day for coaling. Taking the two sisters, we went ashore in one of the many boats surrounding the ship, all manned by scantily robed black fellows. The town, with its hordes of gaudily dressed and noisy blacks, was most interesting. I had hired the boat for the day, so the three black fellows accompanied us around the town. Each wore a stovepipe hat. The remainder of their furniture consisted of cotton shirt and trousers. The men were barefooted, of course. My wife was the typical blue-eyed, golden-haired Englishwoman, and was the observed of all observers in that black mob. I myself was all in white, from canvas shoes to white umbrella. So, between the two sisters in their black robes and white bonnets and our attending boatmen, along with a mob of half-naked black boys that followed, we formed quite a circus and created a commotion in the town.