and the sheep bleated, the fowls cackled, and the ducks quacked, while the negroes chatted and laughed as they handed and hauled on board fish of all shapes and sizes, bunches of bananas, piles of cocoa-nuts, sacks of potatoes, and many other things, finishing up with a tiny black boy, about three years old, whom I think they would rather have liked to leave behind with us, if we would only have taken him.  The fish proved excellent, though some of them really seemed almost too pretty to eat.  A brilliant gold fish, weighing about three pounds, and something like a grey mullet in flavour, was perhaps the best.  The prices were very curious.  Chickens a shilling each, ducks five shillings, goats thirty shillings, and sheep ten shillings.  Vegetables, fruit, and flowers were extremely cheap; but the charge for water, fetched from the spring in our own breakers by our own crew, with but little assistance from four or five negroes, was 3_l_. 18_s_.  However, as ours is the only yacht, with one exception, that has ever visited this island, there was nothing for it except to pay the bill without demur.

I never in my life felt so warm as I did to-day on shore, though the inhabitants say it will not be really hot for two months yet; I never before saw cocoa-nut palms growing; and I never tasted a mango until this morning; so I have experienced three new sensations in one day.

The night was fearfully close, muggy, and thundery, the temperature in the cabins being 89 deg., in spite of open sky-lights and port-holes.  Generally speaking, it has not hitherto been as hot as we expected, especially on board the yacht itself.  On deck there is almost always a nice breeze, but below it is certainly warm.

Tuesday, August 1st.—­Yesterday we were still under sail, but to-day it has been necessary to steam, for the wind has fallen too light.  There was a heavy roll from the south, and the weather continued hot and oppressive.  In the cabins the thermometer stood at 89 deg. during the whole of the night, in spite of all our efforts to improve the temperature.  We therefore put three of the children in the deck-house to sleep, opening the doors and windows; and some of the rest of our party slept on deck in hammocks.  In anticipation of the heavy equatorial rains, which Captain Lecky had predicted might commence to-day, we had had the awnings put up; a fortunate piece of foresight, for, before midnight, the rain came down in torrents.

Wednesday, August 2nd.—­At daybreak the sky was covered with heavy black clouds, and the atmosphere was as hot and muggy as ever.  We had a great deal of rain during the day, and took advantage of the opportunity to fill every available tub, bucket, and basin, to say nothing of the awnings.  It came down in such sheets that mackintoshes were comparatively useless, and we had soon filled our seventeen breakers, the cistern, and the boats, from which we had removed the covers, with very good, though somewhat dirty, washing water.