nd orange groves. Truly, our Canadian
companions might wish us luck in our new possessions!

* * * * *

Later in the day

We have left the Virgin Islands now and at dawn we neared St. Kitts,
of the Leeward group, anchoring a half-mile away from the landing and
putting passengers ashore in the small boats that ranged themselves
near the steamer. There was a very bedlam of chatter, argument, and
recrimination among the black boatmen, mounting at times to furious
invective in a patois we failed wholly to understand, for though the
majority of the natives speak English on all the islands, whether
Dutch, French, or British, they use a language of their own vintage on
these undress occasions. I could see Dolly's bright head and laughing
eyes peeping through her porthole, nodding good-morning to me as I
viewed the scene from my own little stateroom opposite hers.

The St. Kitts boatmaster was a superb personage in white linen uniform
and cap. He stood at the top of the steps lowered from our steamer to
the ocean, and from that serene height of power commanded his
clamorous and refractory legions.

It was his voice that called me irresistibly from my berth and kept my
ears, as well as my eyes, glued to the porthole of my cabin. It was a
deep, rich barytone, as full of color as his own native skies and sea.
The white cap set off his dark skin, and a pair of eyes that shot
lightnings of authority gleamed from under his vizor. He ought to have
been singing the "Pagliacci" prologue at the Metropolitan Opera House,
but instead he was calling resonantly (his private megaphone seemed to
be located in his own throat): "_Don't crowd, Edward.... Push in,
Victoria.... Get away, George.... Come nearer, come nearer, Mary....
Show your number, Albert, or meet me in court to-morrow at eleven!_"

As a matter of fact, these were the names painted on the boats
crowding and jamming their way to the most favorable places for
securing passengers or freight; but the quality of his voice made it
seem as if, in calling Victoria, Edward, George, Mary, and Albert, he
were summoning a corporeal bevy of kings and queens to do his instant
bidding. The excitement reached its climax when an aged bishop
descended the stairway, which was under some circumstances as perilous
as a ladder. The bishop's quaint hat and gown and hood of various
colors made him seem li