r whither it
would have conducted him.

At home (where he was a clerk in the countinghouse of a leading
merchant, by name Jeremiah Doolittle), should such idle fancies have
come to him, he would have looked upon himself as little better than a
fool, but now that he found himself for the first time in a foreign
country, surrounded by such strange and unusual sights and sounds, all
conducive to extravagant imaginations, the wish for some extraordinary
and altogether unusual experience took possession of him with a
singular vehemence to which he had heretofore been altogether a
stranger.

In the street where he stood, which was of a shining whiteness and
which reflected the effulgence of the moonlight with an incredible
distinction, he observed, stretching before him, long lines of white
garden walls, overtopped by a prodigious luxuriance of tropical
foliage.

In these gardens, and set close to the street, stood several
pretentious villas and mansions, the slatted blinds and curtains of
the windows of which were raised to admit of the freer entrance of the
cool and balmy air of the night. From within there issued forth bright
lights, together with the exhilarating sound of merry voices laughing
and talking, or perhaps a song accompanied by the tinkling music of a
spinet or of a guitar. An occasional group of figures, clad in light
and summerlike garments, and adorned with gay and startling colors,
passed him through the moonlight; so that what with the brightness and
warmth of the night, together with all these unusual sights and
sounds, it appeared to Jonathan Rugg that he was rather the inhabitant
of some extraordinary land of enchantment and unreality than a dweller
upon that sober and solid world in which he had heretofore passed his
entire existence.

Before continuing this narrative the reader may here be informed that
our hero had come into this enchanted world as the supercargo of the
ship _Susanna Hayes_, of Philadelphia; that he had for several years
proved himself so honest and industrious a servant to the merchant
house of the worthy Jeremiah Doolittle that that benevolent man had
given to his well-deserving clerk this opportunity at once of
gratifying an inclination for foreign travel and of filling a position
of trust that should redound to his individual profit. The _Susanna
Hayes_ had entered Kingston harbor that afternoon, and this was
Jonathan's first night spent in those tropical latitudes, whither