sparkling shower of spray when a bigger wave than ordinary burst upon the outside reef, the Mosquito men were in their glory. Blue Peter stood erect in the bow, his black, flashing eyes fixed on the water as though he would note every scollop in the edge of the jagged sea-weed, or every wavy ridge on the bed of white sand, and his long thin fish-spear darting occasionally down into the flood to be straightway drawn, bending and quivering, back with a noble fish, writhing and floundering, impaled upon the barbs. Always upon these expeditions I kept a good look-out seaward, and often mounted pinnacles of rock that I might have the better view. Once or twice I saw a sail, apparently set on board a small vessel, slipping quickly down to the westward, or beating painfully to windward; but the barks were too far at sea for me to make out aught of their character or country. During this period of my sojourn in Hispaniola it was our custom to spend the evenings together in the principal hut—that which was first constructed, and which was of an ample bigness. Here, seated round a great chest, which served for a table, we smoked our pipes, drank pretty deep draughts of the rich palm wine, and told in turn stories of our lives and adventures. The hut being only wattled, and that very imperfectly, the strong land breeze blew through and through it, causing the flame of our solitary lamp to waver and flicker, and not unfrequently putting it out altogether. We sat upon bundles made of our clothes, or heaps of dried grass, and must, in sooth, have appeared a parcel of strange ragamuffins, with our faces burnt to mahogany colour by the sun; our hair and beards long, tangled, and matted; and our clothes, being coarse doublets and short jackets, cut in uncouth shapes, and often red and greasy with the blood and fat of the animals which it was our business to kill. Stout Jem, being reckoned the head and commander of our party, sat on a kind of settle for a throne, and the rest of us crowded as near the great chest as we could, the two Mosquito men excepted, who commonly sat apart squatted on their hams, and speaking to each other softly in their own tongue. Sometimes we would play dice on these evenings, not for money, of which we had none, but for the carcasses of the cattle which we had killed and flayed; but as the play was always fair and the dice true, it was generally found that no one either lost or gained much in the long run. It was, however, the storytelling nights I loved the best. Many of the tales then told were indeed very vulgar and common, and unworthy of being recorded, turning solely upon butcheries of the Spaniards at sea, and upon great seasons of debauch, after a successful cruise, in Tortugas or Jamaica. Not a few tales were also told of ghosts and omens, and such extravagances, which the superstitious nature of sailors causes them to believe and to hearken greedily to. I heard many such