hide-houses and the two brigs, bold riders, were dashing about on the full gallop, hallooing and laughing like so many wild men. It was now nearly sundown, and Stimson and I went into a house and sat quietly down to rest ourselves before going to the beach. Several people soon collected to see ``los marineros ingleses,'' and one of them, a young woman, took a great fancy to my pocket-handkerchief, which was a large silk one that I had before going to sea, and a handsomer one than they had been in the habit of seeing. Of course, I gave it to her, which brought me into high favor; and we had a present of some pears and other fruits, which we took down to the beach with us. When we came to leave the house, we found that our horses, which we had tied at the door, were both gone. We had paid for them to ride down to the beach, but they were not to be found. We went to the man of whom we hired them, but he only shrugged his shoulders, and to our question, ``Where are the horses?'' only answered, ``Quien sabe?'' but as he was very easy, and made no inquiries for the saddles, we saw that he knew very well where they were. After a little trouble, determined not to walk to the beach,-- a distance of three miles,-- we procured two, at four reals more apiece, with two Indian boys to run behind and bring them back. Determined to have ``the go'' out of the horses, for our trouble, we went down at full speed, and were on the beach in a few minutes. Wishing to make our liberty last as long as possible, we rode up and down among the hide-houses, amusing ourselves with seeing the men as they arrived (it was now dusk), some on horseback and others on foot. The Sandwich-Islanders rode down, and were in ``high snuff.'' We inquired for our shipmates, and were told that two of them had started on horseback, and been thrown, or had fallen off, and were seen heading for the beach, but steering pretty wild, and, by the looks of things, would not be down much before midnight. The Indian boys having arrived, we gave them our horses, and, having seen them safely off, hailed for a boat, and went aboard. Thus ended our first liberty-day on shore. We were well tired, but had had a good time, and were more willing to go back to our old duties. About midnight we were waked up by our two watch-mates, who had come aboard in high dispute. It seems they had started to come down on the same horse, double-backed; and each was accusing the other of being the cause of his fall. They soon, however, turned-in and fell asleep, and probably forgot all about it, for the next morning the dispute was not renewed. CHAPTER XVII