THE NAUTILUS. 



119 



and other things. The negroes dove expertly for coins, tread- 

 ing water and calling, ' ' You heave, I dive, chief ! ' ' 



I was all on fire to get ashore, and had the opportunity 

 next day. We went in and tied up to the dock to coal, all 

 hands donning khaki and going on liberty. With a friend, 

 whom. I had managed to interest in collecting (to his subse- 

 quent sorrow), I set off across the hills. The heat was in- 

 tense and we were anxious to reach the shore for other reasons 

 than conchological. On the way up a large hill I turned 

 over some fallen boards near an old shanty, and was sur- 

 prised to find hundreds of live Bulimulus exilis, in company 

 with a few Subulina octotia. I picked a boxful and we then 

 moved on. That was all the land collecting I was able to do 

 in St. Thomas, for reasons which will appear shortly. 



We came out at last on a smooth beach and hastened to 

 strip and get in for a swim. While my companion was sport- 

 ing in the waves, I was scurrying over the rocks picking up 

 Neritas, Thais, Littorina, Planaxis, Fissurella, large Livona 

 pica, and many Chitons. Compared to the drab and meager 

 fauna of New England which I was familiar with, this was a 

 riot of wealth. 



Alas! I reckoned not on two things. The first was the 

 West Indian Echinus. I had the misfortune to stumble 

 through a bed of these infernal black, long-spined fellows 

 twdce, and for a moment forgot collecting. Even the volu- 

 minous voca.bulary of the Navy seemed inadequate to do jus- 

 tice to the occasion, but the worst was yet to come. 



The second thing I disregarded was the tropical sun. Those 

 of my readers who have been in the tropics will scarcely resist 

 smiling when I say that after our swim we stretched out on 

 that beach sans raiment for two hours in the full glare of 

 the sun, broken by short dips in the delightfully warm ocean ! 

 We soon repented our folly and learned to respect the power 

 of the sun's rays. 



At length we leisurely dressed, gathered up our concho- 

 logical treasures, and started back to the ship, intending to 

 visit the town also and pay our respects to the ice-cream 

 parlor there. This last we never did, for we had not been 



