But the shower passed, and with it our breeze, and again the brig rocked lazily on the water, which was now filled with branches of trees, and among the rubbish that drifted past, a broken spear and a cocoa-nut attracted particular attention; the one showed the proximity of a people whose primitive weapons had not yet given place to those more effective, of civilized ingenuity, and the other was a certain index of the tropics. The shower passed, but it had carried us within sight of our port. Those who had previously seen cabins on the shore could not now perceive any evidences of human habitation, and stoutly persisted that we had lost our reckoning, and that we were far from our destined haven. But a trim schooner which was just then seen moving rapidly along under a pouring shower, in the same direction with ourselves, silenced the pretended doubters, and became immediately a subject of great speculation. It was finally agreed on all hands that it must be the B——, a vessel which left New York three days before us, the captain of which had boasted that he would “beat us in, by at least ten days.” So everybody was anxious that the little brig should lead him into the harbor, and many were the objurgations upon the wind, and desperate the attempts of the sailors to avail themselves of every “cat’s-paw” that passed. The excitement was great, and some of the impatient passengers inquired for sweeps, and recommended putting out the yawl to tow the vessel in. They even forgot, such was the excitement, to admire the emerald shores which were now distinct, not more than half a mile distant, and prayed that a black-looking thunder-storm, looming gloomily in the east, might make a diversion in our favor. And then a speck was discerned in the direction of the port; and by-and-by the movement of the oars could be seen, and bodies swaying to and fro, and in due time a _pit-pan_, a long, sharp-pointed canoe, pulled by a motley set of mortals, stripped to the waist, and displaying a great variety of skins, from light yellow to coal black, darted under our bows, and a burly fellow in a shirt pulled off his straw hat to the captain, and inquired in bad English, “Want-ee ah pilot?” The mate consigned him to the nether regions for a lubber, and inquired what had become of his eyes, and if he couldn’t tell the Francis anywhere; the Francis, which “had made thirty-seven voyages to this port, and knew the way better than any black son of a gun who ever put to sea in a bread-trough!” And then the black fellow in a shirt and straw hat was again instructed to go below, or if he preferred, to go and “pilot in the lubberly schooner to windward.” The black fellow looked blacker than before, and said something in an unintelligible jargon to the rest, and away they darted for the schooner.