69 



ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS ON WEST INDIA 

 SOCIETY, &c.~.No. IV. 



Day broke through a screen of grey haze tliat enveloped the 

 quays eastward, as we pulled across our harbour to Jock 

 Strachan's carenage. This is a Scotcli sl)ipwright, whose good 

 fortune stranded him long ago on Anegada. The shoals there 

 suffer but little to escape them : vTock's venture, on which his 

 northern thrift was to be exercised at Port Royal, soon went ; and 

 he landed here with nothing on earth save his carpenter's chest, 

 But his carpenter's chest was just ^ the one thing most wanted 

 here. In short, old Strachan's industry, backed by stress of wea- 

 ther, and the underwriters, have made his pocket heavier than 

 many a laird's, at home, it seems. 



There was a brig heaving down at his carenage ; and the cast- 

 away's gaunt figure was soon visible among his dark workmen^ 

 moving through them with a sea-roll that twenty years on terra 

 firma have not steadied. Presently his iron fist met mine, with 

 a grasp like that of his own pincers. My bounden duty to en- 

 quire about the vessel, brought a long tale of her defects, in its 

 richest technicality : indeed the bark exhibited no small damage 

 in what he called her " fore foot." To dismiss Johnny Strachan 

 — a tear will yet drop from him, the merriest of merry souls, at 

 every mention of his long deceased wife ; and some will gibe at 

 something like affection in him, for a superannuated sloop, that 

 lies quiet and useless within the reef. His good dame, at least, 

 was a worthy soul, whose kindness to a widowed lady we know 

 in England, but whom chance threw once on these shores, 

 proved her deserving his love. 



The vessel had been ashore on Buck islet, or Elanca, a place 

 where the translator of Ovid's Metamorphoses suffered shipwreck 

 some years since. It finds notice in Pinkerton's collection, thus 

 — *' We sailed by the Virgins, which are broken islands lying at 

 the eastward of St. John's; and towards evening we landed upon 

 one of them, called Blanca, where we killed an incredible number 

 of fowls. Here we stayed but for three hours, and from thence 

 stood into the shore north-west ; and having brought this island 

 south-east of us, we put towards night through an opening or 

 swatch, called tlie passage, lying between the \^irgins and the 

 east end of St. John's. Here the pinnance left us, and sailed on 

 the south side of St. John's." But our shallop is under weigh. 



