We have left the Virgin Islands now and at dawn we neared St. Kitts, of the Leeward group, anchoring a half-mile away from the landing and putting passengers ashore in the small boats that ranged themselves near the steamer. There was a very bedlam of chatter, argument, and recrimination among the black boatmen, mounting at times to furious invective in a patois we failed wholly to understand, for though the majority of the natives speak English on all the islands, whether Dutch, French, or British, they use a language of their own vintage on these undress occasions. I could see Dolly's bright head and laughing eyes peeping through her porthole, nodding good-morning to me as I viewed the scene from my own little stateroom opposite hers. The St. Kitts boatmaster was a superb personage in white linen uniform and cap. He stood at the top of the steps lowered from our steamer to the ocean, and from that serene height of power commanded his clamorous and refractory legions. It was his voice that called me irresistibly from my berth and kept my ears, as well as my eyes, glued to the porthole of my cabin. It was a deep, rich barytone, as full of color as his own native skies and sea. The white cap set off his dark skin, and a pair of eyes that shot lightnings of authority gleamed from under his vizor. He ought to have been singing the "Pagliacci" prologue at the Metropolitan Opera House, but instead he was calling resonantly (his private megaphone seemed to be located in his own throat): "_Don't crowd, Edward.... Push in, Victoria.... Get away, George.... Come nearer, come nearer, Mary.... Show your number, Albert, or meet me in court to-morrow at eleven!_" As a matter of fact, these were the names painted on the boats crowding and jamming their way to the most favorable places for securing passengers or freight; but the quality of his voice made it seem as if, in calling Victoria, Edward, George, Mary, and Albert, he were summoning a corporeal bevy of kings and queens to do his instant bidding. The excitement reached its climax when an aged bishop descended the stairway, which was under some circumstances as perilous as a ladder. The bishop's quaint hat and gown and hood of various colors made him seem like a benign figure in comic opera; and perhaps because of his dignity or his multiplicity of luggage, all the boats ardently desired him as a passenger. Two green boxes, carrying much information painted in white on the sides, gave us all details of his rank, ancestry, and place of residence. These were projected down the stairway and then followed an imposing procession of servitors bearing potted plants, packages done up in linen cloth, baskets of eggs, limes, lemons, grapefruit, a canary in a cage, some white mice, and a Persian cat; the last three, it is needless to say, being in separate crates.