ed on board the Canton? Never mind, I would enjoy it
were it even a dream.

What a motley crowd of people of every colour! How jolly those negroes
look! How gaily the black ladies are dressed! How the black men laugh!
What piles of fruit and green stuff! What a rich, delicious, warm aroma
hovers everywhere!

An interpreter? You needn't ask _me_. I'm not in charge. Ask my aunt here;
but she herself can talk many languages. Or ask that tall brawny Scot, who
is hustling the darkies about as if South America all belonged to him.

'A carriage, Moncrieff? Oh, this is delightful! Auntie, dear, let me help
you on board. Hop in, Dugald. Jump, Donald. No, no, Moncrieff, I mean to
have the privilege of sitting beside the driver. Off we go. Hurrah! Do you
like it, Donald? But aren't the streets rough! I won't talk any more; I
want to watch things.'

I wonder, though, if Paradise itself was a bit more lovely than the
gardens we catch glimpses of as we drive along?

How cool they look, though the sun is shining in a blue and cloudless sky!
What dark shadows those gently waving palm-trees throw! Look at those
cottage verandahs! Look, oh, look at the wealth of gorgeous flowers--the
climbing, creeping, wreathing flowers! What colours! What fantastic
shapes! What a merry mood Nature must have been in when she framed them
so! And the perfume from those fairy gardens hangs heavy on the air; the
delicious balmy breeze that blows through the green, green palm-leaves is
not sufficient to waft away the odour of that orange blossom. Behold those
beautiful children in groups, on terraces and lawns, at windows, or in
verandahs--so gaily are they dressed that they themselves might be
mistaken for bouquets of lovely flowers!

I wonder what the names of all those strange blossom-bearing shrubs are.
But, bah! who would bother about names of flowers on a day like this? The
butterflies do not, and the bees do not. Are those really butterflies,
though--really and truly? Are they not gorgeously painted fans, waved and
wafted by fairies, themselves unseen?

The people we meet chatter gaily as we pass, but they do not appear to
possess a deal of curiosity; they are too contented for anything. All life
here must be one delicious round of enjoyment. And nobody surely ever dies
here; I do not see how they could.

'Is this a cave we are coming to, Moncrieff? What is that long row of
columns and that high, green, vaulted roof, through which hardly a ray