galleries, called jalousies, with pillars, round which many gaudy creeping plants clung. Here there were great stores, with all manner of commodities, and there, vast taverns, from the open windows of which we could hear loud roaring songs in French and English, and a great clatter of glasses; and now and then, when the noise somewhat lulled, the rattle of dice. The streets, which were very narrow, dusty, and irregular, were crowded with groups of half-drunken seamen and their trulls, gangs of negroes carrying great baskets of fruit and vegetables on their heads down to the harbour, with planters upon horseback, who rode along scattering the crowd right and left, and bullock-carts, which creaked and rumbled by, laden with kegs of sugar or rum, and drawn by oxen, all slavering at the mouth, and seeming half dead with dust and heat. Through these crowded and smothering streets, Captain Jem, who was our leader, pushed along with the air of a man who knew his business and could do it. He was often stopped and accosted by his acquaintances, many of whom professed themselves surprised to see him, as they heard that he had been murdered by the Spaniards in Hispaniola. ‘What! Stout Jem, still in the land of the living?’ said one man, a very tall personage, burnt almost black by the sun, wearing great moustaches, and having a hanger fixed to a broad leathern belt—‘what! Stout Jem again! Why, my lad, we drank a rousing glass to thy memory no later than the night before last, at Nance Finlayson’s on the quay. We heard that the Spaniards had sent thee from Hispaniola to a hotter place still.’ ‘No, no, Captain Archemboe,’ quoth our commander; ‘they tried, but having failed, we mean to have our revenge.’ ‘What! and you have left the wild bulls and are for the sea again? It doth thee honour, man. Hunters are but gentlemen butchers after all. The sea, sir—the sea, with a tight ship, and tight lads for a crew, and reasonable good luck among the galleons—that, sir, is the field, and these be the chances for gentlemen! They tell me that Davis hath come in from the main after a very good cruise, so now I am bound shoreward to see my ancient friend, who, I warrant thee, will screw gold out of the Spaniards, though he squeeze them till it distil at each pore. I give you good day—I give you good day!’