ark set all to rights; sangaree was handed about, and
I looked around at the company. I must acknowledge, at the risk of
losing the good opinion of my fair countrywomen, that I never saw before
so many pretty figures and faces. The _officers_ not having yet arrived,
we received all the attention, and I was successively presented to Miss
Eurydice, Miss Minerva, Miss Sylvia, Miss Aspasia, Miss Euterpe, and
many others, evidently borrowed from the different men-of-war which had
been on the station. All these young ladies gave themselves all the airs
of Almack's. Their dresses I cannot pretend to describe--jewels of value
were not wanting, but their drapery was slight; they appeared neither to
wear nor to require stays, and on the whole, their figures were so
perfect that they could only be ill dressed by having on too much dress.
A few more midshipmen and some lieutenants (O'Brien among the number)
having made their appearance, Miss Austin directed that the ball should
commence. I requested the honour of Miss Eurydice's hand in a cotillon,
which was to open the ball. At this moment stepped forth the premier
violin, master of the ceremonies and ballet-master, Massa Johnson,
really a very smart man, who gave lessons in dancing to all the "'Badian
ladies." He was a dark quadroon, his hair slightly powdered, dressed in
a light blue coat thrown well back, to show his lily-white waistcoat,
only one button of which he could afford to button to make full room for
the pride of his heart, the frill of his shirt, which really was _un
Jabot superb_, four inches wide, and extending from his collar to the
waistband of his nankeen tights, which were finished off at his knees
with huge bunches of ribbon; his legs were encased in silk stockings,
which, however, was not very good taste on his part, as they showed the
manifest advantage which an European has over a coloured man in the
formation of the leg: instead of being straight, his shins curved like a
cheese-knife, and, moreover, his leg was planted into his foot like the
handle into a broom or scrubbing-brush, there being quite as much of the
foot on the heel side as on the toe side. Such was the appearance of Mr
Apollo Johnson, whom the ladies considered as the _ne plus ultra _of
fashion, and the _arbiter elegantiarum_. His _bow-tick_, or
fiddle-stick, was his wand, whose magic rap on the fiddle produced
immediate obedience to his mandates. "Ladies and gentle, take your
seats." All star