CHAPTER I

PASSAGE

Barbadoes was the next island which we visited. Having failed of a passage in the steamer, (on account of her leaving Antigua on the Sabbath,) we were reduced to the necessity of sailing in a small schooner, a vessel of only seventeen tons burthen, with no cabin but a mere hole scarcely large enough to receive our baggage. The berths, for there were two, had but one matrass between them; however, a foresail folded, made up the complement.

We should not omit to mention that we were obliged to lay in our own supply of provisions for the voyage–a work for which we were so illy qualified that we should have despaired of accomplishing it, but for the timely assistance of our kind hostess. The wind being for the most part directly against us, we were seven days in reaching Barbadoes. Our aversion to the sepulchre-like cabin obliged us to spend not the days only but the nights mostly on the open deck. Wrapping our cloaks about us, and drawing our fur caps over our faces, we slept securely in the soft air of a tropical clime, undisturbed save by the hoarse voice of the black captain crying “ready, bout,” and the flapping of the sails, and the creaking of the cordage, in the frequent tackings of our staunch little sea-boat.