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Page 5
Great rejoicings, to be sure, were made on our arrival. All the
flags in the place were hoisted, all the guns in the place were
fired, and all the people in the place came down to look at us. One
of those Sambo fellows--they call those natives Sambos, when they
are half-negro and half-Indian--had come off outside the reef, to
pilot us in, and remained on board after we had let go our anchor.
He was called Christian George King, and was fonder of all hands
than anybody else was. Now, I confess, for myself, that on that
first day, if I had been captain of the Christopher Columbus,
instead of private in the Royal Marines, I should have kicked
Christian George King--who was no more a Christian than he was a
King or a George--over the side, without exactly knowing why, except
that it was the right thing to do.
But, I must likewise confess, that I was not in a particularly
pleasant humour, when I stood under arms that morning, aboard the
Christopher Columbus in the harbour of the Island of Silver-Store.
I had had a hard life, and the life of the English on the Island
seemed too easy and too gay to please me. "Here you are," I thought
to myself, "good scholars and good livers; able to read what you
like, able to write what you like, able to eat and drink what you
like, and spend what you like, and do what you like; and much you
care for a poor, ignorant Private in the Royal Marines! Yet it's
hard, too, I think, that you should have all the half-pence, and I
all the kicks; you all the smooth, and I all the rough; you all the
oil, and I all the vinegar." It was as envious a thing to think as
might be, let alone its being nonsensical; but, I thought it. I
took it so much amiss, that, when a very beautiful young English
lady came aboard, I grunted to myself, "Ah! you have got a lover,
I'll be bound!" As if there was any new offence to me in that, if
she had!
She was sister to the captain of our sloop, who had been in a poor
way for some time, and who was so ill then that he was obliged to be
carried ashore. She was the child of a military officer, and had
come out there with her sister, who was married to one of the owners
of the silver-mine, and who had three children with her. It was
easy to see that she was the light and spirit of the Island. After
I had got a good look at her, I grunted to myself again, in an even
worse state of mind than before, "I'll be damned, if I don't hate
him, whoever he is!"
My officer, Lieutenant Linderwood, was as ill as the captain of the
sloop, and was carried ashore, too. They were both young men of
about my age, who had been delicate in the West India climate. I
even took that in bad part. I thought I was much fitter for the
work than they were, and that if all of us had our deserts, I should
be both of them rolled into one. (It may be imagined what sort of
an officer of marines I should have made, without the power of
reading a written order. And as to any knowledge how to command the
sloop--Lord! I should have sunk her in a quarter of an hour!)
However, such were my reflections; and when we men were ashore and
dismissed, I strolled about the place along with Charker, making my
observations in a similar spirit.
It was a pretty place: in all its arrangements partly South
American and partly English, and very agreeable to look at on that
account, being like a bit of home that had got chipped off and had
floated away to that spot, accommodating itself to circumstances as
it drifted along. The huts of the Sambos, to the number of five-
and-twenty, perhaps, were down by the beach to the left of the
anchorage. On the right was a sort of barrack, with a South
American Flag and the Union Jack, flying from the same staff, where
the little English colony could all come together, if they saw
occasion. It was a walled square of building, with a sort of
pleasure-ground inside, and inside that again a sunken block like a
powder magazine, with a little square trench round it, and steps
down to the door. Charker and I were looking in at the gate, which
was not guarded; and I had said to Charker, in reference to the bit
like a powder magazine, "That's where they keep the silver you see;"
and Charker had said to me, after thinking it over, "And silver
ain't gold. Is it, Gill?" when the beautiful young English lady I
had been so bilious about, looked out of a door, or a window--at all
events looked out, from under a bright awning. She no sooner saw us
two in uniform, than she came out so quickly that she was still
putting on her broad Mexican hat of plaited straw when we saluted.
"Would you like to come in," she said, "and see the place? It is
rather a curious place."
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