160 MEMOIR OF FLEEMING JENKIN 



from a safe distance. This is the most impudent 

 gesture I ever saw. Winking is nothing to it. 

 The ear normally hangs down behind ; the goat 

 turns sideways to her enemy — ^by a little knowing 

 cock of the head flicks one ear over one eye, and 

 squints from behind it for half a minute — tosses 

 her head back, skips a pace or two further off, 

 and repeats the manoeuvre. The cook is very 

 fat and cannot run after that goat much. 



' Pernamhuco, Aug. 1. — We landed here yester- 

 day, all well and cable sound, after a good passage. 

 .... I am on familiar terms with cocoa-nuts, 

 mangoes and bread-fruit trees, but I think I like 

 the negresses best of anything I have seen. In 

 turbans and loose sea-green robes, with beautiful 

 black-brown complexions and a stately carriage, 

 they really are a satisfaction to my eye. The 

 weather has been windy and rainy ; the Hooper 

 has to lie about a mile from the town, in an open 

 roadstead, with the whole swell of the Atlantic 

 driving straight on shore. The little steam launch 

 gives all who go in her a good ducking, as she bobs 

 about on the big rollers ; and my old gymnastic 

 practice stands me in good stead on boarding and 

 leaving her. We clamber down a rope ladder 

 hanging from the high stem, and then taking a 

 rope in one hand, swing into the launch at the 

 moment when she can contrive to steam up under 

 us — -bobbing about like an apple thrown into a tub 



