However, to humour the punctiliousness of his Excellency, now that he
was governor of an island, I placed my papers in my hat, and, leaping
into the surf, waded ashore, where I was received as by a monarch.

The document I presented was the original _Passe Especial_, the one with
the big seal on it, written in Portuguese; had it been in Choctaw the
governor would have read it with the same facility that he did this,
which he stared at knowingly and said, "all right, take all the water
you want; it is free."

I lodged a careful report of the voyage with the governor and explained
to his Excellency the whereabouts of the "Island of Rio," as his grace
persistently called Rio de Janeiro, whence dated my papers.

Conversing on the subject of islands, which was all the world to him,
the governor viewed with suspicion the absence of a word in my
documents, referring even to an islet; this, in his mind, was a
reprehensible omission; for surely New York, to which the papers
referred, was built on an island. Upon this I offered to swear to the
truth of my clearance, "as far as known to me," after the manner of
cheap custom-house swearing with which shipmasters, in some parts of the
world, are made familiar. "Not on the island!" quickly exclaimed the
governor, "'for thou shalt not disglorify God's name,' is written in the
Bible."

I assured the governor of my appreciation of his pious sentiment of not
over-swearing,--a laudable plan that even the Chinese adopt as a policy,
and one that I would speak of on my return home, to the end that we all
emulate the laws of the island; whereupon the governor, greatly pleased,
urged me to take some more water, minding me again that it was free.

In a very few minutes I got all the water I wished for; also some aurora
shells from the governor's lady, who had arisen with the sun to grace
the day and of all things most appropriate held in her generous lap
beautiful aurora shells for which--to spoil the poem--I bartered
cocoa-nuts and rusty gnarly yams.

The lady was on a visit only to her lord and master, the monarch of all
he surveyed. Beside this was their three children also on a visit, from
Nassau, and two assistant keepers of the light which made up the total
of this little world in the ocean.

It was the smallest kingdom I had ever visited, peopled by happy human
beings and the most isolated by far.

The few blades of grass which had struggled into existence, not enough
to suppor