rdered, with four
seamen and two marines, to take the command of a block-house on the
Presqu' Isle to watch the movements of the enemy, whose advanced post was
about four miles on the other side the isthmus, as well as to make signals
to the commodore whenever strange ships appeared near the land. I remained
a month, shooting guanas and gulls and other birds, catching groupers,
snappers and sometimes rock-fish, living principally on salt junk,
midshipman's coffee (burnt biscuit ground to a powder), picking calelu (a
kind of wild spinach), when we could find it, snuffing up a large portion
of pure sea-breeze, and sleeping like the sheet anchor. Oh, reader, I
blush to inform you that I was envied by the greater part of the mids of
the squadron who loved doing nothing. The life I now led was too
independent to last much longer; my month expired, when I gave up my
Robinson Crusoe government to a master's mate belonging to a ship which
had come in to refit. We at length up-anchored, as the mids declared if we
remained longer the captain feared we should ground on the beef-bones we
threw overboard daily! Three days after sailing we captured a Spanish
schooner from Cuba, bound to Port-au-Paix, with nine French washerwomen on
board with a quantity of clothes. We presumed, with some reason, these
copper-faced damsels--for they were all mulattos, and some of them
handsome--had taken French leave of their customers, or possibly they were
going on a voyage of discovery to find out whether the water of St.
Domingo was softer for washing linen than that of Cuba. We did not ask
them many questions on the subject, and as the vessel was nearly new, and
about seventy tons, we put a mid and five men on board her and sent the
ladies for a change of air to Jamaica.

We had been cruising between Cuba and Cape Francois a fortnight, when we
saw a roguish-looking black schooner about nine miles to the westward of
the cape, close to a small inlet. We tacked and stood to sea, to make her
imagine we had not discovered her. At dusk we stood in again, and at ten
we armed the barge and large cutter. The fifth lieutenant, who was a great
promoter of radical moisture (_i.e._, grog), was in the barge. I had, with
another mid, the command of the cutter. We muffled our oars and pulled
quietly in shore. About midnight we found the vessel near the inlet, where
she had anchored. We then gave way for our quarter. She soon discovered
us, and hailed in French. N