middy's grave. 41 



less exacting masters than the Brazilians. Among 

 the latter it is a common practice to send so many 

 slaves each day to earn a certain fixed sum by car- 

 rying burdens, pulling in boats, or other laborious 

 employment ; and those who return at night without 

 the sum thus arbitrarily assessed as the value of 

 their day's work, are severely flogged for their 

 presumed idleness. 



During our brief stay at Bahia I paid a visit to 

 the grave of poor young Musters, a little Middy 

 in the Beagle during our last voyage, who died 

 here on the 19th May, 1832, from the eff*ects of a 

 fever caught while away on an excursion up the 

 river Macacu. He was a son of Lord Byron's 

 ** Mary," and a great favourite with all on board. 

 Poor boy ! no stone marks his lonely resting place 

 upon a foreign shore, but the long grass waves over 

 his humble grave, and the tall palm tree bends to 

 the melancholy wind that sighs above it. As I paid 

 his memory the tribute due to his many virtues 

 and his early death, I breathed a prayer that the 

 still and placid beauty of the spot where his mortal 

 remains return to their kindred dust, may typify 

 the tranquil happiness of that world of spirits with 

 which his own is now united ! 



On the afternoon of Friday the 25th, we left the 

 magnificent bay of Bahia, and after obtaining an 

 offing, stood away to the southward and eastward. 

 I was much amused by a story of Grey's a day or 

 two after we sailed : it seems he had mistaken the 



