and there was a steeplechase round the deck, among benches, bales, and coils of rope; while the passengers and the crew cheered first one and then the other, till they could not speak for laughing.  The husband was all but caught once; but a benevolent passenger kicked a camp-stool in the lady’s way, and he got a fresh start, which he utilized by climbing up the ladder to the paddle-box.  His wife tried to follow him, but the shouts of laughter which the black men raised at seeing her performances were too much for her, and she came down again.  Here the captain interposed, and put her ashore, where she stood like black-eyed Susan till the vessel was far from the wharf, not waving her lily hand, however, but shaking her clenched fist in the direction of the fugitive.

To return to our voyage to the Isle of Pines.—­All the afternoon the steamer threaded her way cautiously among the coral-reefs which rose almost to the surface.  Sometimes there seemed scarcely room to pass between them, and by night navigation would have been impossible.  We were just in the place where Columbus and his companions arrived on their expedition along the Cuban coast, to find out what countries lay beyond.  They sailed by day, and lay to at night, till their patience was worn out.  Another day or two of sailing would have brought them to where the coast trends northwards; but they turned back, and Columbus died in the belief that Cuba was the eastern extremity of the continent of Asia.

The Spaniards call these reefs “cayos,” and we have altered the name to “keys,” such as Key West in Florida, and Ambergris Key off Belize.

It was after sunset, and the phosphorescent animals were making the sea glitter like molten metal, when we reached the Isle of Pines, and steamed slowly up the river, among the mangroves that fringe the banks, to the village of Nueva Gerona, the port of the island.  It consisted of two rows of houses thatched with palm-leaves, and surrounded by wide verandahs; and between them a street of unmitigated mud.

As we walked through the place in the dusk, we could dimly discern the inhabitants sitting in their thatched verandahs, in the thinnest of white dresses, gossipping, smoking, and love-making, tinkling guitars, and singing seguidillas.  It was quite a Spanish American scene out of a romance.  There was no romance about the mosquitos, however.  The air was alive with them.  When I was new to Cuba, I used to go to bed in the European fashion; and as the beds were all six inches too short, my feet used to find their way out in the night, and the mosquitos came down and sat upon them.  Experience taught us that it was better to lie down half-dressed, so that only our faces and hands were exposed to their attacks.