darkey! His royal tigership never could bear the sight
of him, probably because he had been trepanned by some of the nigger
race; and whenever 'Lamp Black,' that was his name, came near, his eyes
kindled like live coals, and he growled from the bottom of his belly.
We often cautioned cookey to be careful, and so he was. Well, we touched
at Saint Helena, and right glad old Bengal was, no doubt, for we had got
short of chickens--the only delicacies he seemed to relish--and he
couldn't be coaxed to touch salt junk. A few days after, the Nubian was
handing him his breakfast, with the galley tormentors, a pair of tongs
like, through the small trap door on top of the cage, and, like a fool,
he just took one little peep, to see how tenderly the tiger could suck
the last drop of blood from a chicken's body, when, by one rapid blow of
his paw, he sunk his sinewy claws into the darkey's neck, tore the head
from the trunk, and in a second was crunching the reeking mass between
his grinders. He scoffed bones, wool, and flesh, and there lay the
remains of poor 'Lamp Black' quivering on the rod decks. After this
little difficulty, he became quite civil and civilized, and never caused
us more trouble. By and by, we arrived in London docks, and as they were
a good while preparing a birth for him in the Zoological gardens, Jim
and me exhibited him from a ha'penny to half-a-crown, to men, women, and
children. So you see, sir, we made nigh forty pounds a piece, and had a
capital spree, I tell ye." Old Harry nearly choked, and did not
thoroughly recover until his throat had been cleared with a glass of
grog.

Thirty-six days from Tahiti, and we arrived in Valparaiso. Remaining in
port nearly a month, the anchor was again weighed, and our prow again
turned seaward. Passing the Point of Angels, the burnished keel bravely
ploughed the open ocean, the blue waves following in snowy crests, and,
in a few minutes, shores, town and hills had faded from sight.

CHAPTER LII.

The 28th of January, 1849, found us on the Peruvian coast, abreast the
Island of San Lorenzo, a mountain of sand, where not a blade of grass
can vegetate; and rounding Galera Cape, we were shortly moored in the
port of Callao.

The bay is a wide, sweeping indentation, with Lorenzo, Fronton, and a
narrow spit of land jutting from the main, serving to keep the harbor
smooth from prevailing southerly winds. To the north, the spurs of the
Andes approach layer upon laye