But from the produce I must return to the island and my passengers.  The first day of their arrival they ate their dinner, took their coffee, and returned to bed early to enjoy a comfortable night after so many of constant pitching and tossing.  The next morning the ladies were much better, and received the visits of all the captains of the India ships, and also of the captain of the frigate who escorted them.

The officers of the Bombay Castle had been invited to dinner; and the first mate not being inclined to leave the ship, Newton had for one accepted the invitation.  On his arrival, he discovered in the captain of the frigate his former acquaintance, Captain Carrington, in whose ship he had obtained a passage from the West Indies, and who, on the former being paid off, had been appointed to the command of the Boadicea.  Captain Carrington was delighted to meet Newton; and the attention which he paid to him, added to the encomiums bestowed when Newton was out of hearing, raised him very high in the opinion, not only of Captain Drawlock, but also in the estimation of the ladies.  At the request of Captain Carrington, Newton was allowed to remain on shore till their departure from the island; and from this circumstance he became more intimate with the ladies than he would in all probability have otherwise been in the whole course of the voyage.  We must pass over the gallop up to Nostra Senhora da Monte,—­an expedition opposed by Captain Drawlock on the score of his responsibility; but he was overruled by Captain Carrington, who declared that Newton and he were quite sufficient convoy.  We must pass over the many compliments paid to Isabel Revel by Captain Carrington, who appeared desperately in love after an acquaintance of four-and-twenty hours, and who discovered a defect in the Boadicea which would occupy two or three days to make good, that he might be longer in her company; but we will not pass over one circumstance which occurred during their week’s sojourn at this delightful island.

A certain Portuguese lady of noble birth had been left a widow with two daughters, and a fine estate to share between them.  The daughters were handsome; but the estate was so much handsomer that it set all the mandolins of the Portuguese inamoratos strumming under the windows of the lady’s abode from sunset to the dawn of day.

Now, it did so occur, that a young English clerk in a mercantile house, who had a fresh complexion and a clean shirt to boast of (qualifications unknown to the Portuguese), won the heart of the eldest daughter; and the old lady, who was not a very strict Catholic, gave her consent to this heretical union.  The Catholic priests, who had long been trying to persuade the old lady to shut up her daughters in a convent, and endow the church with her property, expressed a holy indignation at the intended marriage.  The Portuguese gentlemen, who could not brook the idea of so many fair hills of vines going away to a stranger,