172 CAMPS IN THE CARIBBEES. 



honored by these quadrupeds as their abode. Barba- 

 dos is said to have very few, and Grenada has large 

 troops of them. Those of St. Kitts are numerous and 

 do much injury to the crops. It is related that they 

 have access to a passage under the sea, to Nevis, a 

 distance of six miles. 



Before leaving Antigua I met an old acquaintance, 

 a dentist, who had sailed in the vessel in which I took 

 passage from New York, and who had left me at Mar- 

 tinique, the first island of the chain at which we touched. 

 Though he had never taken a degree, he was gener- 

 ally known as " The Doctor." He was an apt manip- 

 ulator of the forceps, and had accumulated, during 

 the six months we were separated, twenty-five hun- 

 dred dollars, extracted from the innocent islanders. 

 Now, the doctor was a genius. He had a genius for 

 making money, and a special tact for taking care of 

 number one. Leaving New York with but sixty dol- 

 lars and his stock in trade, he landed in the West 

 Indies with his cash greatly augmented, and with the 

 captain, mate, cook, in fact the whole crew, deeply 

 in his debt. That I escaped with a whole tooth in 

 my head I attribute to some special interposition of 

 Providence. The doctor's period of sojourn on ship- 

 board may be divided into two portions : that in which 

 he was pulling, or " fixin'," teeth, and that in which he 

 was sea-sick. He was happy in the exercise of the 

 former, and unhappy in that of the latter. When the 

 doctor appears on deck with a particularly happy 

 expression on his countenance, and polishing some- 

 body's molar on the lapel of his coat, beware of him ! 

 The whole crew would then shudder with apprehen- 

 sion. 



