14 CROCODILE ISLAND. 



lofty Sisquo Dumfki. How ill founded was my hatred of that 

 noble individual, you will discover in the sequel of my story. 



" On this occasion he did not come alone. At his side, as he 

 stood humbly before me, and paid his compliments to the queen, 

 my mother, I marked with palpitating heart and flushing cheek, 

 the most beautiful young girl I had ever seen. Her limbs, un- 

 concealed by the foolish drapery in which the European damsels 

 endeavour to hide tlieir inferiority, were like polished marble, so 

 smooth and round and beautifully shaped. Round her middle 

 she wore a light bandage, embroidered with the feathers of the 

 eagle, and this was the sole garment she had on, save that her 

 head was ornamented with a beautiful diadem of heron's plumes. 

 She was so young, so artless, and so ravishingly beautiful, that 

 she took my heart captive at the first glance. I had at that time 

 only twelve wives, selected by the regent from my own peculiar 

 tribe, but several other nations had for some time been importun- 

 ing me to choose a score or two of consorts from the loveliest of 

 their maidens, and I had, for some reason or other, delayed com- 

 plying with their requests. But now I was resolved to marry 

 the whole nation, so as to secure this most beautiful of her sex. 

 Alas ! was it not madness thus to give way to these tender emo- 

 tions, when the first word she uttered conveyed to me the appal- 

 ling certainty that she was the daughter of my deadliest foe — of 

 the very being whom it had been the sole object of my education 

 to enable me to drink to death ! But a second look at the en- 

 chanting girl made me forgetful of every feeling of revenge. I 

 spoke to her — I found her soft, sweet, delightful, — a daughter of 

 the pathless forest, — stately as the loftiest palms that waved their 

 plumed heads in grandeur to the sky, and pure as the spiral 

 ophrys, with its snow-white flowers, which blossoms so tenderly 

 at their feet. Her name was Nemrooma, which in your language 

 means the spotless lily — mine, I must inform you, was Quin- 

 molla, the drinker of rum.*' 



To be concluded in our next. 



