The doctor was in famous spirits; removing his Koora, he went splashing into the sea; and, after swimming a few yards, waded ashore, hopping, skipping, and jumping along the beach; but very careful to cut all his capers in the direction of our journey. Say what they will of the glowing independence one feels in the saddle, give me the first morning flush of your cheery pedestrian! Thus exhilarated, we went on, as light-hearted and care-free as we could wish. And here I cannot refrain from lauding the very superior inducements which most intertropical countries afford, not only to mere rovers like ourselves, but to penniless people generally. In these genial regions one’s wants are naturally diminished; and those which remain are easily gratified; fuel, house-shelter, and, if you please, clothing, may be entirely dispensed with. How different our hard northern latitudes! Alas! the lot of a “poor devil,” twenty degrees north of the tropic of Cancer, is indeed pitiable. At last, the beach contracted to hardly a yard’s width, and the dense thicket almost dipped into the sea. In place of the smooth sand, too, we had sharp fragments of broken coral, which made travelling exceedingly unpleasant. “Lord! my foot!” roared the doctor, fetching it up for inspection, with a galvanic fling of the limb. A sharp splinter had thrust itself into the flesh through a hole in his boot. My sandals were worse yet; their soles taking a sort of fossil impression of everything trod upon. Turning round a bold sweep of the beach, we came upon a piece of fine, open ground, with a fisherman’s dwelling in the distance, crowning a knoll which rolled off into the water. The hut proved to be a low, rude erection, very recently thrown up; for the bamboos were still green as grass, and the thatching fresh and fragrant as meadow hay. It was open upon three sides; so that, upon drawing near, the domestic arrangements within were in plain sight. No one was stirring; and nothing was to be seen but a clumsy old chest of native workmanship, a few calabashes, and bundles of tappa hanging against a post; and a heap of something, we knew not what, in a dark corner. Upon close inspection, the doctor discovered it to be a loving old couple, locked in each other’s arms, and rolled together in a tappa mantle. “Halloa! Darby!” he cried, shaking the one with a beard. But Darby heeded him not; though Joan, a wrinkled old body, started up in affright, and yelled aloud. Neither of us attempting to gag her, she presently became quiet; and, after staring hard and asking some unintelligible questions, she proceeded to rouse her still slumbering mate. What ailed him we could not tell; but there was no waking him. Equally in vain were all his dear spouse’s cuffs, pinches, and other endearments; he lay like a log, face up, snoring away like a cavalry trumpeter.