Our captain justified the confidence so poetically expressed above.  He sailed his ship along steadily, taking no risks, and after a pleasant passage of thirty-six days brought her to anchor in Carlisle Bay, Barbadoes, where we were due to deliver some bags of mails.  I have said that the trip was uneventful; it was even without incident save for some fooleries on reaching the Line, and such trifling distractions as an unsuccessful attempt to shoot an albatross, and the sighting of some flying-fish and sundry long-tailed birds which the sailors called boatswains.  But, as Plinny wrote—­

     “Life at sea has a natural monotony
        Of which ’twere irrational to complain: 
      You cannot, for instance, study botany
        As in an English country lane. 
      But the mind is superior to distance
        With its own reminiscences stored,
      Not to mention the spiritual assistance
        We derived from a clergyman on board.”

(He was a sallow young man of delicate constitution, and, partly for his health’s sake, had accepted the pastorate of a Genevan church in Kingston.)

From Barbadoes we beat up for Jamaica, and anchored in Kingston Harbour just forty-five days from home.  The next morning we said farewell to the ship, and were rowed ashore to a good hotel, where we spent a lazy week in email excursions, while Captain Branscome busied himself in hiring a mule-train and holding consultations with a firm of merchants, Messrs. Cox and Roebuck, to whom Miss Belcher came recommended with a letter of credit.  These gentlemen, understanding that we desired to cross over to the Main to visit some relations of Miss Belcher resident in Virginia (for that was our pretence), opined that the matter was not difficult of management, but that we must needs travel to the extreme west of the island if we would hire a vessel for the purpose, and they mentioned an agent of theirs at Savannah-la-Mar—­Jacob Paz by name—­as the likeliest man for our purpose.

Armed with a letter of introduction to this man, in the early morning of October 22 we started on muleback, and, travelling without haste through the exquisite scenery of Jamaica (the main roads of which put ours of Cornwall to shame), arrived at Savannah-la-Mar on the 27th, a great part of the way having been occupied by Miss Belcher (who hated the sight of a negro) in rebuking Plinny’s sentimental objections to slavery, and by Mr. Rogers in begging a collection of humming-birds.

It took (I believe) some time at Savannah-la-Mar to convince Mr Paz, a subtle half-breed, that we were actually fools enough to wish to purchase one of his vessels, and mad enough to propose working her alone.  He had three boats idle, including a pretty little fore-and-aft schooner of thirty tons, the Espriella, which Captain Branscome had no sooner set eyes upon than he decided to be the very thing for our purpose.  She was fitted with a large ladies’ cabin aft