iety. This was the fielding. He
said:

"You see, men don't mind batting, but they get very unsportsmanlike when
it comes to going out into the field. Some actually hide, or pretend
they have engagements; others feign illness and retire; others, again,
salve their miserable consciences by paying a negro a shilling to go and
field for them. I only mention this. I know you're not the man to do
such things; but, between ourselves, I fear the Doctor is just a sort of
chap to escape fielding. There are others also I must keep an eye upon.
Being captain of a scratch cricket team in the Tropics is no light task,
I can tell you."

A considerable crowd had gathered to see the conflict. The negroes sat
and lolled round the ground, while, behind them, buggies and horsemen
were drawn up. Conspicuous in that gay throng appeared the Captain of
the "Rhine," seated on a brown horse, amid female equestrians. Beyond
the audience rose a belt of tamarind and flamboyant trees, the latter
with gigantic green and brown seed-pods hanging from their branches; and
above these woods, sloping upwards to the blue sky, extended the hills,
with winding roads, visible here and there through the foliage that
covered them, and with many a flagstaff and white cottage scattered upon
their sides.

The ground itself suggested golf rather than cricket. Here and there a
little dried-up grass occurred, but it collected in lonely tufts,
between which extended great ravines and hillocks and boulders and
patches of desolation. Upon a barren spot in the middle, the wickets had
been pitched. When we arrived, they appeared to be an object of no
little interest to sundry goats. These beasts evidently regarding the
stumps as some strange new form of vegetation, sprang up in a single
night from the arid soil, sauntered round them enquiringly, and a shabby
he-goat, braver than his companions, nibbled the bails.

[Illustration: "NIBBLED THE BAILS."]

Our opponents, adequately attired, had arrived. They constituted a
motley, good-humoured gathering in all shades. One, John Smith, a genial
hybrid, commanded them, and presently a great shout arose, when it
transpired that he had secured choice of innings. The Doctor said, in a
tone of reproof:

"Hang it, John, you've only won the toss. You couldn't make a bigger row
if you'd won the match."

[Illustration: JOHN SMITH.]

"Great fing to go in fus, sar," explained John; "we go in fus now, when
we's fresh."

Then th