ve said, Alfonso was very black, and Alfonso was very dignified.
But his blackness, compared with the blackness of the pilot who came off
at St. George's Island, and piloted us through the Narrows, was as that
of a kid shoe to a boot that has been polished by blacking. As to
dignity, no comparison can be made. The dignity of that nigger pilot
exceeded anything, regal, municipal, or even parochial, that I have ever
seen. As he came up the ship's side, Dennis was looking over it, and
when the pilot stood on deck Dennis fled abruptly, and Alister declares
it took two buckets of water to recover him from the fit of hysterics in
which he found him rolling in the forecastle.

The pilot's costume bore even more reference to his dignity than to the
weather. He wore a pea-coat, a tall and very shiny black hat, white
trousers, and neither shoes nor socks. His feet were like flat-irons
turned the wrong way, and his legs seemed to be slipped into the middle
of them, like the handles of two queer-shaped hoes. His intense,
magnificent importance, and the bombastic way he swaggered about the
deck, were so perfectly absurd, that we three youngsters should probably
have never had any feeling towards him but that of contempt, if it had
not been that we were now quite enough of seamen to appreciate the skill
with which he took us safely on our dangerous and intricate passage
into harbour. How we ever got through the Narrows, how he picked our way
amongst the reefs and islands, was a marvel. We came in so close to
shore that I thought we must strike every instant, and so we should have
done had there been any blundering on his part.

We went very slowly that day, as became the atmosphere and the scene,
the dangers of our way, and the dignity of our guide.

"It's an ill wind that blows nobody good," said Dennis, as we hung over
the side. "If it's for repairs we've put into Paradise, long life to the
old tub and her rotten timbers! I wouldn't have missed _this_ for a
lady's berth in the West Indian Mail, and my passage paid!"

"Nor I."

"Nor I."

_This_ was indeed worth having gone through a good deal to see. The
channel through which we picked our way was marked out by little buoys,
half white and half black, and on either side the coral was just awash.
Close at hand the water was emerald green or rosy purple, according to
its depth and the growths below; half-a-mile away it was deep blue
against lines of dazzling surf and coral sand;