SECOND YEAR AT PENIKESE. 75. 



animals; but, although the speaker tried his utmost 

 to illustrate the difference between these lowest 

 forms, I sadly fear that, to many, the am&ba and pro- 

 tamceba and amixa and protamixa, were so confounded 

 in the minds of the listeners, owing, no doubt, to the 

 slight real difference between them, that few appreciat- 

 ed the lecturer's earnest efforts. But Mr. Roetter, the 

 genial, patient Mr. Roetter, has shown more and more 

 of the calm endurance required to complete a finished,, 

 satisfactory sketch of some object of special interest. 

 How slowly, methodically, and yet how well he drew 

 and instructed; his own drawings were our object les- 

 sons, often, and well we knew that we could never 

 attain to such a degree of artistic beauty and excel- 

 lence. It was thus that each professor, in his depart- 

 ment, sought to give us his best from which to form a 

 model for us for our future scientific advancement 

 and career. 



Sunday! It is a very quiet day with us: no work, 

 but complete rest. We have church, or rather a sort 

 of social meeting or gathering together in the morn- 

 ing, and are left free to wander where we will for the 

 remainder of the day, which closes with a singing-ser- 

 vice if so we may call it from the little fort on the 

 hill, in the evening, and from which it is accounted 

 quite a disgrace to be absent. In the singing all who 

 can and wish join. 



After considerable urging, our colored waiters form 

 a chorus of their own and treat us to some of their 

 native songs. Far over the waters float these simple 

 words of praise. Everyone who has ever heard them 

 is aware of the wonderfully peculiar pathos that there 

 is in the melody of songs sung by good colored singers. 

 There were four in our chorus, and their voices har- 

 monized well together. We retired from the little 

 fort, during the singing, and the minstrels occupied it 

 alone. They sang with great power, pronouncing 

 each word clearly and distinctly. Their songs were 

 simple, both in word and in tune, but they seemed to 

 us, upon that wave-lapped island, so far from land r 



