frame; and round the room stood several solid mahogany chairs, whose polish showed no common attention to appearance. The room

to the right displayed an excellent bed, with white muslin curtains, and a coverlet that vied with snow in whiteness; an English carpet covered the bed-room floor; the sitting-room was neatly matted. Decanters, wine-glasses, goblets, and a China tea-service graced the side-board, and a small corner beaufet with glazed doors; and some neatly-framed prints ornamented both rooms, the whole of which were hung with extraordinary regularity and good taste. Upon a small stand near the bed-room window which overlooked his provision-grounds, was laid "Gor O'Mighty's own book," as the negro, whose name was Samuel, called it-"him Bible," upon which was a pair of silver-mounted spectacles. In a few minutes a neatly-dressed negress entered with a japanned tea-tray covered with fruits, and a China jug of hot and a porous jug of cold water. Samuel went to the beaufet and took out a China basin and plate to correspond, in the former of which he put a table-spoonful of the arrow-root and a little cold water, which, with a well-polished silver table-spoon, he mixed together. Having so done, he laid it upon the table and went to the side-board drawer, (the highly-pleased Jack, for Samuel was no stranger to Carew, looking at all he saw with silent astonishment,) from whence he took a bottle and a napkin, in which he enveloped it; and having suspended it in the window where the most air was current, Samuel placed a large basin beneath it, from which he took a liquid, (some rum,) and continued to pour it over the bottle until the cloth was completely saturated. That done, "for make him cold," Samuel called Quasheba for "biling hot water: him must bile Quasheba ;" and Quasheba brought it proper biling. Taking the boiler in his left hand, he poured water upon the mixture in the basin, whilst he stirred it with the spoon in his right; and as he stirred so it acquired consistency, of the clearness of very clear starch, but uncoloured. Then taking the bottle from the window, he drew the cork, and presented some cool and old Madeira wine to his guests, some of which he mixed with sugar and nutmeg in the arrow-root; and in less than two hours Jack had seen the whole pro

surely they will set me Hope and Cape Horn.

cess of manufacturing it, and tasted the panada. "Quite enough," said he, "for my log to-day! but I must not tell it at home, for down as having rounded the Cape of Good No one will believe it, no even the skipper, so near the spot, not until he has seen Samuel and his cottage." "Den bring him, good master; I old nigger glad for see gentleman, make Samuel too proud berry much."

At parting the young friends had very great difficulty in getting Samuel to allow Quasheba to take a Spanish dollar; for himself, nothing in the shape of pecuniary acknowledgment would he accept. "Him berry proud him master son bring him friend to see Samuel's house; him tank Gor O'Mighty berry much." Jack and his friend bade good-bye to the kind old negro: the former's mind became so impressed with the occurrences of the day, that no time could ever erase from his memory the interior of the slave's hut, and the slave's hospitality.

To suppose that many such slaves as Samuel were to be found upon every plantation would be ridiculous; that only the good and the prudent could acquire similar comforts was to be believed; but it is equally credible that all who chose might do so; and many of them, by their savings, could easily purchase their own provisiongrounds, if it suited their masters' policy and the law of the colony to permit slaves to purchase lands.

Black sheep are to be met with in most flocks; and even belonging to the most humane planters there are overseers to be found to whom may well be applied the words of our immortal bard,—

"You have among you many a purchased slave,

Which, like your asses, and your dogs, and mules,

You use in abject and in slavish part,

Because you bought them."

Merchant of Venice.

CHAPTER XXXI.

SHARKS AT A

PREMIUM.-THE LOSS OF A FRIEND.-CASSADA;

WITH A TOUCH AT TAPIOCA.

HAVING spent an hour or two with this humane, respected and hospitable overseer, who pressed them much to stay and see the "rat and monkey catching," for which extensive preparations were made in an adjoining cane field,—a bit of capital fun that Jack most reluctantly was obliged to decline, as Mr. Carew (his friend's father) expected them to dinner with the other officers of the "Fowey," they returned to Bridgetown, where Jack heard of their mess-servant having been killed by a shark, which was matter of great regret to all on board, for he was superior to his station, and a general favourite. The unfortunate youth had ventured beyond the sail, which had been spread about five feet under water, and was bitten directly in two by a white shark (squalus carcharias); several muskets had been fired at the assailant, upon seeing the danger of the boy; but notwithstanding that several balls took effect, the monster's voracity urged him to his prey, and, almost in an instant, the surrounding waters were dyed with blood; nevertheless it made a second attempt to seize the other half of the poor fellow's body, but three or four of the boldest swimmers struck out, as if in defiance of the shark, and having seized the body by the arms, they dragged the remains within the limits of the sail, the boats in attendance having prevented the monster from following, or, from its enormous size, others might have fallen victims to their courage and humanity. The "Fowey's" officers and ship's company offered a reward of two hundred dollars to whatever fisherman or other person should catch the shark: and for several days every

possible endeavour was made, and a look-out kept from the mast-head by volunteers, a service that every sailor in the ship readily took by turns; but all without success. One of the same species was, however, taken and hauled on board; twelve feet in length, with six rows of flat, triangular, and serrated teeth, very sharp; the outer row erect, the other flat; but the Barbadians aver that the animal raises or depresses them, as his appetite may be keen or otherwise. When the jaws were cleaned, the first lieutenant passed them over his shoulders, which barely touched them. The first thing a sailor does upon a shark being hauled on board is to cut off the tail with an axe, or much mischief might be done by so powerful a captive.

The remains of the poor lad were buried at Bridgetown, and many a kind-hearted Barbadian shed tears at the sailor's funeral. This poor lad's death threw an unusual gloom over the ship's company, and all dancing was suspended, by unanimous consent, for a week after the funeral. The day after the funeral Jack and his friend Carew, who had become inseparable, took another drive to the plantation; for so well pleased was the Captain at Jack's shore-log, that he was allowed to stay on shore so long as the ship was moored, by way of encouraging him to make himself acquainted with matters of such general utility, as the old sailor considered the information which young Carew had enabled him to acquire.

"In the course of time, younker," said the Captain, "you may touch at places where what you see here may benefit their natives; perhaps there are many islands where sugar, cassada, and arrow-root may grow in a wild state, and their uses be entirely unknown. What a benefit, then, you would confer by imparting to the islanders that very information you have already partly entered correctly in your diary, and which your excellent and clever young friend is so desirous to make you master of. I shall be delighted that your time at Barbadoes has been so well employed, and I promise that you shall see a dignity-ball at Jamaica.

"Now, then," said Jack, "I will learn all I can, without being colted into it, as Haultaut would have done, about his save-all fish concern. As I said before, The devil haul him

The object of the third visit to the plantation was the cassada grounds.

In point of beauty, although altogether of a different caste and colour to the sugar-cane fields, the cassada grounds deserved the second rank. Planted in quincunxes, the beautiful, but in its raw state deadly-poisonous cassada, was most grateful, from the deep green of its digitated leaves, to the eye of the visitor; for it almost imparted a degree of coolness to the air, even under a "ten o'clock" sun.

"Now then, my dear Carew," said Jack, "you may give me all the names you can for this beautiful shrub, if I may so call it, and I will chalk them down in italics; and I shall be very glad to see how it is prepared for use."

Carew ordered his attendant to break off a few stalks with the flowers on them, and they proceeded to the overseer's, where, after the usual preliminary of swizzle and sangaree, for Jack could not reconcile himself to the former, and "one must drink something," said Jack, "by way of fetching up lee-way for the loss of so much grease," (alluding to the excessive perspiration the exercise had promoted), Carew thus described the cassada, or, as called elsewhere "cassava," and in the French West India islands "manioc."

"This plant," said Carew, "is the jatropha manitot of Linnæus, the great Swedish naturalist. This small white flower (stripping off the petals) belongs to the twenty-first class, monoccia, (pointing out that the term signified a single house, having male and female flowers on the same plant,) and of the nineteenth order, monodelphia, displaying the male flowers upon one set of united stamina."

“But,” said Jack, "you forgot to tell Sambo to bring some roots as well as sticks and flowers;" certainly an oversight, but the cassada grounds were near, and in less than ten minutes Sambo returned with the roots and plant, or rather shrub, complete. Carew then pointed out that as the stick, or stalk, more properly speaking, was full of joints, plants would spring from every joint above ground, and roots strike downwards or horizontally below ground; and, therefore, in planting the manitot, or cassada, about fourteen or fifteen inches of the stalk sufficed; which being planted from eight to ten inches