, rose the naked carcass of Thomas Troubridge, Esq., preparing
for a header, while at his feet were grouped three or four black
fellows, one of whom as we watched slid off the rock like an otter. The
reach was covered with black heads belonging to the savages, who were
swimming in all directions, while groups of all ages and both sexes
stood about on the bank in Mother Nature's full dress.

We had a glorious bathe, and then sat on the rock, smoking, talking,
and watching the various manoeuvres of the blacks. An old lady,
apparently about eighty, with a head as white as snow, topping her
black body (a flourbag cobbler, as her tribe would call her), was
punting a canoe along in the shallow water on the opposite side of the
river. She was entirely without clothes, and in spite of her
decrepitude stood upright in the cockleshell, handling it with great
dexterity. When she was a little above us, she made way on her barque,
and shot into the deep water in the middle of the stream, evidently
with the intention of speaking us. As, however, she was just half-way
across, floating helplessly, unable to reach the bottom with the spear
she had used as a puntpole in the shallower water, a mischievous black
imp canted her over, and souse she went into the river. It was amazing
to see how boldly and well the old woman struck out for the shore,
keeping her white head well out of the water; and, having reached dry
land once more, sat down on her haunches, and began scolding with a
volubility and power which would soon have silenced the loudest tongue
in old Billingsgate.

Her anger, so far from wearing out, grew on what fed it; so that her
long-drawn yells, which seemed like parentheses in her jabbering
discourse, were getting each minute more and more acute, and we were
just thinking about moving homewards, when a voice behind us sang out,--

"Hallo, Major! Having a little music, eh? What a sweet song that old
girl is singing! I must write it down from dictation, and translate it,
as Walter Scott used to do with the old wives' ballads in Scotland."

"I have no doubt it would be quite Ossianic--equal to any of the
abusive scenes in Homer. But, my dear Harding, how are you? You are
come to eat your Christmas dinner with us, I hope?"

"That same thing, Major," answered the new comer. "Troubridge and
Stockbridge, how are you? This, I presume, is your partner, Hamlyn?"

We went back to the house. Harding, I found, was half-owner of a
s