Very pleasant was the run up to St. Thomas’s, not merely on account of the scenery, but because we had once more—­contrary to our expectation—­the most agreeable of captains.  His French cultivation—­he had been brought up in Provence—­joined to brilliant natural talents, had made him as good a talker as he doubtless is a sailor; and the charm of his conversation, about all matters on earth, and some above the earth, will not be soon forgotten by those who went up with him to St. Thomas’s, and left him there with regret.

We transhipped to the Neva, Captain Woolward—­to whom I must tender my thanks, as I do to Captain Bax, of the Shannon, for all kinds of civility.  We slept a night in the harbour, the town having just then a clean bill of health; and were very glad to find ourselves, during the next few days, none the worse for having done so.  On remarking, the first evening, that I did not smell the harbour after all, I was comforted by the answer that—­’When a man did, he had better go below and make his will.’  It is a pity that the most important harbour in the Caribbean Sea should be so unhealthy.  No doubt it offers advantages for traffic which can be found nowhere else:  and there the steamers must continue to assemble, yellow fever or none.  But why should not an hotel be built for the passengers in some healthy and airy spot outside the basin—­on the south slope of Water Island, for instance, or on Buck Island—­where they might land at once, and sleep in pure fresh air and sea-breeze?  The establishment of such an hotel would surely, when once known, attract to the West Indies many travellers to whom St. Thomas’s is now as much a name of fear as Colon or the Panama.

We left St. Thomas’s by a different track from that by which we came to it.  We ran northward up the magnificent land-locked channel between Tortola and Virgin Gorda, to pass to leeward of Virgin Gorda and Anegada, and so northward toward the Gulf Stream.

This channel has borne the name of Drake, I presume, ever since the year 1575.  For in the account of that fatal, though successful voyage, which cost the lives both of Sir John Hawkins, who died off Porto Rico, and Sir Francis Drake, who died off Porto Bello, where Hosier and the greater part of the crews of a noble British fleet perished a hundred and fifty years afterward, it is written in Hakluyt how—­after running up N. and N.W. past Saba—­the fleet ’stood away S.W., and on the 8th of November, being a Saturday, we came to an anker some 7 or 8 leagues off among certain broken Ilands called Las Virgines, which have bene accounted dangerous:  but we found there a very good rode, had it bene for a thousand sails of ships in 7 & 8 fadomes, fine sand, good ankorage, high Ilands on either side, but no fresh water that we could find:  here is much fish to be taken with nets and hookes:  also we stayed on shore and fowled.  Here Sir