loO Xolcs oil J iiiiglr anil Other Wild Life. 



Liraiulfather, a ca])tain in tlie navy, left me most of his library, 

 one of the consequences of which was that I had to use his 

 cij4"liteenth century Horace. Virgil (with the s's like f's) and 

 Itomer — totally void of the predigested " notes " of my more 

 fortunate fellows — and regarded this unassisted task in much 

 the same light as the remiger on the second row of the trireme 

 iliought of his unhappy lot; but it was quite otherwise with five 

 volumes of James' Naval History; they were as fascinating" as 

 any novel (dime or other) then accessible to me. I recollect to 

 tliis day tlie story of H.M.S. Diauwnd Ruck, which, if yuit 

 remember, please pass on to the next item. Three times have I 

 ,-een the Rock during the past two years, and three times have 

 1. for the sake of old memories, scamied it attentixely. 



About a c[uarter of a mile from tlie south coast of 

 Martinque, between that French island and St. Lucia, there rises 

 sheer out of the sea a naked rock that suggests, to my mind, i. 

 magnified Flatiron Building, with its almost straight sides and 

 level top. It was between this rock and the neighbouring- 

 island that the French and British fleets were wont, during the 

 Napoleonic wars, to play at naval hide-and-go-seek — to the 

 advantage of the tirst-named. until Admiral Hood conceived the 

 original plan of converting the rock into a garrisoned fortress. 

 In February. 1805. the crew of a British cruiser, by means 01 

 ropes, hauled their guns to the summit; and there, for four 

 months, exposed to all the discomforts of a liroiling sun, torren 

 ''al rains and the continued assaults of an active enemy, defied 

 their adversaries. During that sixteen weeks it wasn t healthy 

 lor a French ship to come within range of f^iaiuoiid Rock! 

 Many a historian has told this romantic tale, but here is a para- 

 graph or two from Aspinall's li'csf Indies: — " Hood, seeing 

 that the h'rench ships escaped him by running between this rock 

 and the Points de Diamante, laid his seventy-four, the Centaur, 

 close alongside the Diamond, made a hawser fast to the ship 

 and to the top of the rock, which is accessible on the leeward 

 side, and slung with a traveller three long 24's and two i8's to 

 the summit, the sailors looking ' like mice hauling a little 

 sausage.' Scarcely could they hear the (lovernor on the top 

 'h'recting them with his trumpet; the Centaur lying close under. 

 i'ke a cocoa-nut shell to which hawsers are affixed." FTere 

 Lieut. L W. Maurice, with 120 men and boys, remained for 



