12 THE VOYAGE. 
can’t help it nohow; thar ain’t no other room.’ 
‘If I pay for both beds,’ I replied, ‘surely I can 
have it all to myself?’ This was at length 
acreed to, the money paid, and at an early 
hour I turned in, to enjoy a good sound sleep 
ashore. 
Excepting two miserable, hard, curtainless beds, 
an old rickety chest of drawers, and a couple of 
chairs, the room was destitute of furniture ; but 
spite of all discomfort, mosquitos, and other pests, 
felt if not seen or heard, I fell fast asleep, soon 
to be roused again by a loud knocking at my 
door, the sound of numerous feet scufiling hur- 
riedly up and down the passage, and a very Babel 
of voices. Hardly awake, my ideas were in a 
jumbled sort of chaos as to the cause. Fire, 
burglars, riots, a house-fight, were all mixed in 
strange confusion, until an angry voice, that 
appeared to come through the speaker’s nose, 
yelled, rather than spoke, ‘Say, ar you agwine 
to open this door? Our women want them beds 
for a lay-out, and jist mean to havin em, any- 
how.’ ‘Ah!’ thought I, ‘they want the spare 
bed I have paid for.’ Of course I refused—who 
would not?—and, dragging the old chest of 
drawers against the door, defied them to do 
their worst. 
