A NIGHT WALK. 123 



an address from the loyal inhabitants of Blanchisseuse 

 testifying their deliglit at the honour of, &c. &c. ; which he 

 begged leave to present in due form next day ; and all the 

 while the brow^n crowd surged round and in and out, and the 

 naked brown children got between every one's legs, and every 

 one was in a fume of curiosity and delight anything being 

 an event in Blanchisseuse save the one Chinaman, if I 

 recollect right, who stood in his blue jacket and trousers, his 

 hands behind his back, with visage unimpassioned, dolorous, 

 seemingly stolid, a creature of the earth, earthy, say rather 

 of the dirt, dirty, but doubtless by no means as stolid as 

 he looked. And all the while the palms and bananas rustled 

 above, and the surf thundered, and long streams of light 

 poured down through the glens in the black northern wall, 

 and flooded the glossy foliage of the mangos and sapodillas, 

 and rose fast up the palm-stems, and to their very heads, and 

 then vanished ; for the sun was sinking, and, in half an hour 

 more darkness would have fallen on the most remote little 

 paradise in Her Majesty's dominions. 



But where was the warden, who was by office, as w^ell as 

 by courtesy, to have received us ? He too had not expected 

 us, and was gone home after his day's work to his new 

 clearing inland : but a man had been sent on to him over the 

 mountain ; and over the mountain we must go, and on foot 

 too, for the horses could do no more, and there was no 



