genious arrangement for mounting a gun on a pivot amidships, and at
the same time shifting it a few feet to port or starboard so as to
permit of its being fired directly ahead or astern clear of the masts.
None of her guns, however, were mounted at the time of her capture, they
afterwards being found stowed below at the very bottom of her hold in a
space left for them among her water-leaguers, from which they could
easily be raised on deck when required. Like her consorts, she had on
board a full cargo of slaves--numbering two hundred and forty, of whom
about one-fourth were women and children--when captured.

Our passage up the creek having been effected in the intense darkness of
an overcast and rainy night, it had of course been quite impossible for
us to form any conception of the appearance of our surroundings; but
now, in the broad daylight and clear atmosphere of a fresh and brilliant
morning, every detail of the scene in the midst of which we found
ourselves stood out with the most vivid distinctness, and I was not only
astonished but delighted with the singularity and beauty of Nature's
handiwork that everywhere met my eye in this region of tropical
luxuriance. The three craft were the only evidences of man's intrusion
upon the scene with which we were confronted; everything else was the
work of Nature herself, untrammelled and uninterfered with; and it
appeared as though in the riotous delight of her creative powers she had
put forth all her energies in the production of strange and curious
shapes and bewildering combinations of the richest and most dazzling
colours. True, the water of the creek, which in consequence of the
sheltering height of the bordering vegetation was glassy smooth, was so
fully charged with mud and soil held in suspension that it resembled
chocolate rather than water; but its rich brown colour added to rather
than detracted from the beauty of the picture, harmonising subtly with
the brilliant greens, deep olives, and splendid purples of the foliage,
and the dazzling white, yellow, scarlet, crimson, and blue of the
trailing blossoms that were reflected from its polished surface, as well
as the delicate blue of the sky into which it merged at a short distance
from the vessels. Mangroves with their multitudinous and curiously
twisted and gnarled roots and delicate grey-green foliage lined the
margin of the creek on either hand, and behind them rose tall, feathery
clumps of bamboo alterna