The West Indies and the Spanish MainLibrary of Alexandria, 2020. szept. 28. I am beginning to write this book on board the brig ——, trading between Kingston, in Jamaica, and Cien Fuegos, on the southern coast of Cuba. At the present moment there is not a puff of wind, neither land breeze nor sea breeze; the sails are flapping idly against the masts; there is not motion enough to give us the command of the rudder; the tropical sun is shining through upon my head into the miserable hole which they have deluded me into thinking was a cabin. The marine people—the captain and his satellites—are bound to provide me; and all that they have provided is yams, salt pork, biscuit, and bad coffee. I should be starved but for the small ham—would that it had been a large one—which I thoughtfully purchased in Kingston; and had not a kind medical friend, as he grasped me by the hand at Port Royal, stuffed a box of sardines into my pocket. He suggested two boxes. Would that I had taken them! It is now the 25th January, 1859, and if I do not reach Cien Fuegos by the 28th, all this misery will have been in vain. I might as well in such case have gone to St. Thomas, and spared myself these experiences of the merchant navy. Let it be understood by all men that in these latitudes the respectable, comfortable, well-to-do route from every place to every other place is viâ the little Danish island of St. Thomas. From Demerara to the Isthmus of Panamá, you go by St. Thomas. From Panamá to Jamaica and Honduras, you go by St. Thomas. From Honduras and Jamaica to Cuba and Mexico, you go by St. Thomas. From Cuba to the Bahamas, you go by St. Thomas—or did when this was written. The Royal Mail Steam Packet Company dispense all their branches from that favoured spot. But I was ambitious of a quicker transit and a less beaten path, and here I am lying under the lee of the land, in a dirty, hot, motionless tub, expiating my folly. We shall never make Cien Fuegos by the 28th, and then it will be eight days more before I can reach the Havana. May God forgive me all my evil thoughts! Motionless, I said; I wish she were. Progressless should have been my word. She rolls about in a nauseous manner, disturbing the two sardines which I have economically eaten, till I begin to fear that my friend's generosity will become altogether futile. To which result greatly tends the stench left behind it by the cargo of salt fish with which the brig was freighted when she left St. John, New Brunswick, for these ports. "We brought but a very small quantity," the skipper says. If so, that very small quantity was stowed above and below the very bunk which has been given up to me as a sleeping-place. Ugh! "We are very poor," said the blue-nosed skipper when he got me on board. "Well; poverty is no disgrace," said I, as one does when cheering a poor man. "We are very poor indeed; I cannot even offer you a cigar." My cigar-case was immediately out of my pocket. After all, cigars are but as coals going to Newcastle when one intends to be in Cuba in four days. |
Részletek a könyvből
1 - 5 találat összesen 34 találatból.
... Pretty! no; I'se not pretty. If I was pretty, he'd not have left me so. He used to call me Feeny." "What! the Jew did." I thought it might be well to detract from the merit of the lost admirer. "A girl like you should have a Christian ...
... pretty foot; and as for her waist, I never saw one better turned, or more deftly clothed. Her little foot went to work upon the floor, and then clenching her small right hand, she held it up before my face as though to show me that she ...
... pretty; and then after dinner they have but one sin—there is but one drawback—they will go to bed at 9 o'clock. But by the men during the day it did not seem to me that the sun was much regarded, or that it need be much regarded. One ...
... pretty nearly as well as he can in England. I saw various grazing farms—pens they are here called— while I was in this part of the country; and I could not but fancy that grazing should in Jamaica be the natural and most beneficial ...
... pretty habit it is for a warm country. If you don't drink your wine after dinner, why not take it before? I have no doubt that it is the more wholesome habit of the two. Not that I recommend, even in the warmest climate, a second bitter ...