n he
started with muleteers and servants on the difficult and perilous
journey over the Cordilleras, and thence across the Pampas to Buenos
Ayres, Monte Video, and Rio de Janeiro. In April 1854, there was in
the harbour of Rio a vessel which hailed from Liverpool, and was
called the "Bella." She was about to sail for Kingston, Jamaica, and
it was to Kingston that Roger had directed his letters and remittances
to be forwarded, that being a convenient resting place on his journey
to Mexico, where he intended to spend a few months. The "Bella" was a
full-rigged ship of nearly 500 tons burden, clipper-built, and almost
new. Aboard this ship, then taking in her cargo of coffee and logwood,
came one April morning a young English gentleman who introduced
himself as Mr. Tichborne. He was dressed in a half tourist, half
nautical costume, and wanted a passage to Kingston. Travelling with
servants, hiring yachts and canoes, buying paintings, curiosities, and
natural history specimens, had proved more expensive than he expected.
His funds were exhausted; nor could his purse be replenished until he
got to Kingston, where letters of credit were expected to be waiting
for him. It was some little time before the captain believed the
young man's story, but when he did, he not only undertook to convey
him and his people to Kingston; he determined to help him in a matter
of some delicacy and not a little danger; for when the vessel was near
sailing, Roger was found to be without that indispensable requisite, a
passport. Great excitement then prevailed in Brazil on the subject of
runaway slaves. Black slaves had escaped by making themselves
stowaways; "half-caste" people, relying on their comparative fairness
of skin, had openly taken passage as seamen or even passengers, and
thus got away from a hateful life of bondage. Hence the peremptory
regulation that no captain should sail with a stranger aboard without
an official license. Under these circumstances a plan was devised by
the captain. When the Government officers came aboard, no Tichborne or
other stranger was visible. As the vessel, loosened from her moorings,
was slowly drifting down the harbour in the morning, the officers sat
at a little table on deck, smoked and drank with the captain. At
length the moment came to call their boat and take farewell, wishing
the good ship "Bella" and her valuable freight a pleasant voyage.
Scarcely had they departed, when the table was removed; and