"The tide by this time was quite still, and the breeze sank almost at once, as we were shut in from the sea, when we were surprised to see the striped Portuguese flag, rise off a tall bamboo stick, among the bushes on the open shore, nearly abreast of us, where a low muddy-like wall was to be made out, with something of a thatched roof or two, and a sort of rude wooden jetty running before it into the water. Shortly after, Don José came paddling out again, and got on board, this time with an old cocked hat on, excusing himself for not having fired a gun--which was to save us expense, he remarked, being particular friends--seeing that he'd got to demand twelve dollars of harbour dues and duties, whereas, if he saluted, he must have charged fourteen. The cool impudence of this brought the chief officer from the capstan; but the steady face of the fellow, and the glance he took round the deck when the cadet told him he'd better be off at once, made me think he had something or other to back him. Mr Finch, as usual, fumed up into a passion, and told the men to fling him over into his canoe, which they accordingly did, without the least nicety about it; the Portuguese next minute picking himself up, and standing straight, with the look of a perfect devil, as he shook his fist at the whole ship, while the canoe slid off to the shore. "Budge even so much as a single fathom, at present, we could not; and most of us were too much in the spirit of fun and venture to care a fig for having made an enemy of Don José So-on, as the cadet called him; indeed, it seemed rather to set a finer point on people's admiration of the green jungly-looking shore next to us, with its big aloes and agaves growing before the bush, and all sorts of cocoas, palms, monkey-bread, and tall white-flaked cotton trees, rising in every way out from over the rest. For my part, I thought more of the Portuguese _interest_, after all, than his hatred--which proved correct, by his soon sending out a sulky message by the mulatto, offering to sell us fowls and a bullock, at no ordinary price. However, all hands from the cabin were mad already to get ashore somewhere, and the cadets, bristling with fowling-pieces and rifles, each singing out that he was ready to supply the whole ship with fresh meat; so the mulatto had to sheer off, with a boat nearly lowered over his head.